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Sunday, July 12, 2009

I confess. I'm a terrible blogger. The posts are far and few between and the results are very disjointed.

Silk campshirts have been on the worktable for the past month. I started out by purchasing a few pieces of quilting cottons from Jenny's $3 table. The first piece was a yard dyed cotton and the second was a Hawaiian print. The third is a white lacy shirting, but that's going to be used for a different project.

The shirts were drafted using PMB. The first shirt was drafted using a convertible collar, back yoke of 4 inches deep and set in sleeves that were 3 1/2 inches long, and the bodice was 28 inches long, 3 inches of ease all over. I took the shirt into P.E. and cut off the part that would be replaced by the back yoke and deleted the front yoke piece. Then I added an inch onto the center back of the back bottom bodice (for the two pleats that go onto the back of the shirt. The collar was drafted per the defaults.

The yarn dyed cotton was sewn first. The front shoulder was a little too high, so I shaved a half inch off the outside, tapering in using my sissors. Youngest DD absolutely hated the yard dyed plaid. Everyone else thought it was nice. Youngest DD said the collar was too mannish, too wide.

So, for the second shirt I redrafted the collar using a setting of 3 inches center back and point settings of 1 and 1 and printed out a new pattern. The next one was made using the pattern with the piece shaved off the shoulder and the slightly narrower collar. Everyone liked it better, but there were still pulls in the back. The sleeve didn't set in smoothly and looked wonky. Both are wearable casual camp shirt type blouses.

The third shirt was made from a peach colored silk herringbone that I had tossed into the washer a couple of times. I hand drafted a sleeve cap using instructions from Peggy Sagers and Ms. Stylebook combined. Also the back yoke was modified to add an eighth of an inch to the center back (along with a seam) and an extra seam allowance on the bottom center, tapering to nothing at the side. This was to accomodate my baby dowager's hump. >:(

The final blouse is just what I wanted. It's a great washable work blouse for summer. I'm working on a second one in a pale lime green. The lime green one is not being as cooperative. Stupid silk is puckering and sliding around and doing weird things. It will be finished today though.

Purchased a couple more embroidery lessons yesterday. They are really good for the $10 and I'm learning lots from them. This has been a long time goal of mine. So two New Years resolutions are being worked on, sewing good fabrics and learning my embroidery software.