Refashioned Pink Portrait Blouse (for the Refashioning the 1960s Challenge!)

Shame on me for being late, but I had a bit of a "trip hangover" and also forgot that we would be out of town through Monday, not Sunday.  Thus, the garment's photoshop needed to be pushed back until today.  Oops!

As you know from this post, I planned to refashion a large pink button-down shirt with swiss dots using the portrait blouse pattern from Gertie's New Book for Better Sewing.  After a lot of hemming (not literally) and hawing, I FINALLY dove in and got my garment done!.

Here is my Refashioned Pink Portrait Blouse!

This was a part of our Refashioning the 1960s Challenge and with this 1960's inspired pattern and starting materials, I think I did a pretty good job.  :)

First of all, I obviously turned the blouse around and reworked the shirt from there.  That means that I was left with a lovely row of buttons all along the back of the shirt!  I think it's lovely, and it made the construction much easier.  Of course, I still had some difficult items to contend with along the way, which I plan to share in a post about how to refashion garments.

As for the pattern itself, I found that it was easy to use, even though I was apprehensive about it.  I traced the pattern, for which I will share a tutorial some time next week.  It was my first time sewing tucks, which I think are very feminine and unique!  Here is a close-up of the dart, tuck, and the Swiss dot fabric.

I did mention that I made a few changes to the pattern.  For one thing, I did not follow the hem exactly and I just decided to keep the original hem of the pieces.  It required a bit of measuring to make sure they matched up, but it was pretty close!  To make the neckline more flattering on me, I created a slight V-shape.

Also, I did not include the side zipper, since I can shimmy into the shirt or unbutton the back if need be.  Lastly, I did not include the facings and just hemmed the neckline normally.  The fabric is sheer and fairly strong, so I thought a facing would actually be more of a distraction than anything.


Now for the bad part...  Although it looks a bit lumpy here, the back fits perfectly except there is one problem.  I didn't have enough fabric on the original front piece, so I had to cut through the sleeves to borrow a bit of fabric.  Scroll down a picture if you're not sure what I mean...

That's the edge of my sleeve below.  Also, since the original sleeve was set in with excess fabric in the shoulder area (like normal), I had to basically create a dart in the bottom of the sleeve and cut away the excess to get the fabric to lie flat.

I can pretend that it was an intended detail, but we all know that it totally wasn't!  The funny thing is that now I have the leftover two sleeves and the collar, but there was no way to make the piece I wanted bigger.  Oh well!

The thing that I'm most proud of is my tiny bit of tailoring to make it a bit more flattering.  I know that it looks a little loosey goosey on Lily, but I like the way it fits now, and I actually made quite a few changes!

First of all, I moved the dart up more than 1 inch because it was pointing pretty far down on the apex of the bust.  Also, I always seem to have a bunching of fabric at the back of my neckline, as well as having it rise very high on my neck.  I adjusted the piece, and it now lays flat.

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This was a great learning experience, and I can't wait to refashion a few more garments in my closet!  Stay tuned next week for the rest of our Stitch Once, Rip Twice members' garments!