Using the Stash

I have finished the second item from my swap; actually it's been done for almost a week but I got distracted by work. Very annoying, when working tries to take precedence over sewing; I'm working on how to eliminate that problem. Meanwhile, back to our regularly scheduled programming:

For this blouse, I used S7167(oop) with a few alterations. First, since I am planning to make a 1/2 sleeve jacket, I shortened the sleeve to match. When worn with the jacket, the turned cuff will turn up over the jacket sleeve.

The other alteration just, well, happened. This is one made from a stash piece of corded swiss dot. Not from my stash, mind you, but from a friend's stash. The best part of having good friends who sew is the communal nature of the stacks. It is a wonderful fabric, but being the end of a bolt (I think there was a full yard but I could be wrong), there were a few interesting bits to contend with.

First off, matching stripes was not an option. I'm not too worried about that since they are white on white so any random meetings at the seams aren't glaring at anyone. The second issue with this piece was tape residue. I didn't even notice until after I had cut out the blouse that one of the front pieces had a yellow streak on the reverse that showed through.

But never to be deterred by little things, I started looking at options to hide the icky yellow dried glue bit. After reviewing my scraps (I don't throw them out for a reason), I found a piece large enough to cut a front yoke. Because the offending mark was near the neckline, I was able to cut it off and replace it with this design detail. Yup, that's what we call this in 'the biz'. I considered inserting some irish lace in the seam, but that didn't seem to go with the style. Instead, I found a few scraps of entre-deux that matched the fabric perfectly.

So that neat yoke? Did it on purpose. Matching the stripe there was important, so I hand-basted to make sure nothing slipped in the sewing process. I then serged off the seams, and was back in business.

One note about fit; I noticed after I took this picture that there is a bit of stress at the bustline. Don't worry, my mannequin is more blessed than I and the pulling doesn't happen when I'm the one wearing the blouse.

Because I just love bias-cut stripes, I cut the sleeve facing on the bias. I really like how crisp it all turned out; I used some fusible shirtailor on the facings which worked beautifully. I need to get more.

The buttons were a perfect find too; I'm not sure why but several of my swap pieces have square or diamond buttons. Maybe I'm just drawn to unique shapes, or perhaps it's the clean lines that make me want to spice it up a bit with the buttons.

There's black thread on the serger now, which means the next thing up will be my black knit top. I can't wait; there is just something about rayon knit.