1980's Simplicity Blouse

 My friend Lisa scooped me up a bag of vintage patterns at a quilt show a couple of months ago, bless her soul. Most of them were close to my size and some are very cute. This is the first one I took for a ride. It's Simplicity 9434 and, according to the pattern envelope, it was printed in 1980.

Here is the pattern envelope in question. They describe it as a button front blouse with split cap sleeves, front shoulder tucks and optional tie belt. View 1, which I made, has a "narrow shawl collar." I do love me a shawl collar and this one is very nice. It feels like a good width and it rolls gently and stays in place.

Here's a close-up of the collar, and the front shoulder tucks. 

And here's a close up of the split cap sleeves, of which I am not a fan. They involve weirdly shaped little facings that were a pain to wrangle into place, and they want to fold themselves up funny if I wear a sweater. Or even if I move my arms the wrong way. Though now that I'm looking at the photo they do  look kind of cute.

I used a cotton sateen intended for quilt backing, the remnants of my Lacey dress. Or that was the plan. 

I only had about a yard of oddly shaped bits of fabric left over. I spent quite a while moving pattern pieces around and cussing, and I finally determined I could fit all the pieces if I shortened the top a bunch and cut everything out in a single layer. Woo hoo! I ran downstairs and told The Man, "I am a genius!"

Then when I got to sewing I realized I had forgotten to flip one of the upper collar pieces over, and there absolutely was not enough fabric left to recut. So then I had to go back to The Man and admit, "I am an idiot." After which I sloped off to Hart's to buy another 1/4 yard.

OK, fine. I'm sewing along. I have the under collar pieces interfaced and I start trimming the seam so I can turn it outside and press. That's when I realize that I've trimmed off the wrong side of the under collar. Good thing that extra quarter yard was 120 inches wide!

So, one of those projects that was more complicated than it had any right to be.

I do like the finished blouse, and I'd love to figure out how to redraft the sleeves to get rid of that split. It seems like it shouldn't be too hard, right?

If I can made that modification this will be a quick and easy top to sew up, and I could see having a few more. Maybe one in linen. 

My pattern review is on PatternReview.com here.

Mermaid Lacey Dress

 My granddaughter's 4th birthday is just around the corner. I know she'd probably rather have something to play with, but I made her a dress anyway, with matching shorts. 

I did choose mermaid fabric though. She's very into mermaids at the moment. Well, mermaids and Disney princesses, but mermaids are easier to source.

There were actually 4 different mermaid prints at Hart's to choose from. I went for a Dear Stella quilting cotton in a print called Shell Yeah Navy. 

The sewing pattern is from StyleArc. It's the kid version of the Lacey Dress, which I made myself in grown-up size as part of my resort wear wardrobe.

This was an easy pattern to put together, especially since I'd just sewn the adult view a couple weeks ago. 

For Margot's version I used the gathers as the pattern suggested, rather than changing it up for pleats like I did for mine. I also slid some flat piping into the seams that attach the sleeves to the bodice. Otherwise it might look like I cut those mermaids into pieces just for the shell of it (ha ha ha)

I made a couple of small changes to the pattern. The instructions have you cut the back bodice on the fold, then cut a slit at the top to give room for a kid head to fit through the neckline. It would have been nice to have the print uninterrupted, but I cut the back in two pieces and seamed up to the slit. This meant I didn't have to apply a finicky bias binding to finish the slit's edges. 

I also opted to extend the bias binding at the neck into a tie closure, instead of the button and loop the pattern called for. Margot probably won't be able to tie it, but at least she'll be able to get it off all by herself.

I was able to squeeze the shorts out of the remnants of the dress fabric. Margot always wears shorts under her dresses. I hear that's the style in pre-school. I used the Oliver + S Sunny Day Shorts pattern, which has to be the simplest shorts pattern ever. I'd forgotten how quick these are to make up. 

I added a label in the back so that Margot won't end up dressed backwards in the morning. She's pretty good at dressing herself, but those labels are useful markers. I kind of wish I'd use them more often in my clothes. It would make mornings easier to manage.

I hope she likes the outfit. When I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she said "All the toys." I told her she already has all the toys, but I don't think she believed me.

My pattern review is on PatternReview.com here.