Vogue 8322 blouse with a stab at stripe matching

I finished it, after the glass of wine, and amazingly there were no sewing disasters, and I did not even stay up late.

I whinged to my entire household yesterday evening, and they obviously felt that I would be unbearable should I fail to finish the SWAP (although they kindly refrained from telling me this)and my husband cleaned up the kitchen after dinner so that I could sew.

I hope you are all jealous :).Those of you with domestically inclined husbands can just keep quiet :).

He then asked me to sew him a cycling cap. I will think about it.

My stripe matching is not perfect, but there are bits with which I am pleased.


I have more stripe matching photos, but even I am not finding them terribly interesting, so I imagine that they are deadly dull for other people.

I changed a few things about this blouse, mostly following an article in Australian Stitches by Maree Pidgeon, shirt maker extraordinaire. I had used the collar and front neck from this pattern (Vogue 8322) for an earlier blouse in the SWAP list, and was disappointed that the chest opening was narrow, and the supposed-to-be-standing collar much more wide and high, than shown in the pattern envelope illustration and technical drawing. Maree's article demonstrates widening the opening at the upper chest and shortening the collar by 1.5cm, and both narrows the collar and reshapes the end to make them more rounded (and just like the pattern illustration on the envelope) Bad Vogue!
The use of bias panels for the front and back sides is also Maree's idea. Her version also has piping and extra long contrast buttonholes, but I felt the fabric I used (Michael's Fabrics lightweight cotton twill) is sufficiently busy without further embellishment. The short sleeve and bias finish on the sleeves are my idea. The other alteration to the pattern is a princess seam small bust alteration, otherwise this is a straight size 8. I am happy with the fit.
My daughter really likes this blouse. I feel much better about SWAP today. Thanks for the kind comments following yesterday's rant.

Another BWOF 09-2008 Frankenpattern blouse/ Vogue 8322

The next SWAP blouse was originally to be Vogue 8322.

However, I was not really keen to fit this princess line blouse for my daughter, especially as the fabric earmarked for the next blouse was a crinkle stretch cotton blend, which is not the easiest fabric to sew. I wanted to keep seamlines to a minimum.
Instead I laid the size 8 neckline and front of view C from the Vogue pattern over the BWOF 09-2008 pattern for the blouse that I made earlier. I lined up the centre front lines, and thought hard whilst I was cutting out so as to remember the difference between the non-seam allowance and full seam allowance pattern pieces. The sleeve is 09-2008-126 again,this time constructed with the pleats, placket and cuff as shown in the magazine.


I was not fully confident about the back neckline, as although the length of the 2 pattern pieces was the same on the stitching line, the shape was different, but I decided to try it in the BWOF shape with the Vogue upright collar and see how it went.
The upright collar was not a success. It is too high, and looked nothing like the line drawing. This could be a) my different back neckline b) the stretchy, crinkle fabric or c) the pattern. Fortunately, both my daughter and I like the collar worn turned down, even though this shows the different facing fabric.

The different facing fabric is one of the strategies I attempted to minimize the inherent problems of sewing crinkle fabric. I was not able to match the colour of the grey crinkle fabric exactly, but fusing dark interfacing to pale lavender batiste made a toning shade to the grey, and a firm fabric base to use for the front facings and collar. My other crinkle fabric strategies were to sew woven selvage to the shoulder seams for stability, to bunch up the sleeve fabric when sewing the armscye, and the hem, to minimize rippling, and some retrofitting at the shoulder seams, front tucks and side seams once the garment was sewn as it was a little too large due to the fabric ease.

Unfortunately this fabric does not photograph well. The lycra in the stripes gives the fabric a subtle sheen, which reads as overall shiny through the camera. In real life this is a much more matte fabric than it looks on my computer monitor.



Materials cost: Fabric: 1.3m cotton blend crinkle fabric from Sckafs fabrics, $26, batiste, about $2
Pattern: Vogue 8322 from USA, about $11 inc postage
Buttons: 5x 65c, $3.25
Interfacing and thread: $3
$45.25

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Answers to questions and responses to comments from previous posts

The Slapdash Sewist asked re BWOF 09-2008-107 "Is it comfortable to pull on and off? Wovens without a button front seem like they'd be too constricting."

The blouse is made of an extremely stretchy, stretch woven. As Claudine commented, this stretchiness makes the blouse easy to pull on over the head, although it is fitted. My daughter finds it quite comfortable to wear. I was actually able to try this on myself, to get an idea of the shape on me, even though I am quite a bit larger than my daughter.

Neighbourhood gal asked "What kind of work does your daughter do? She looks so young to be working."

Queensland is the only state in Australia to not have an age minimum for employment, although there are restricted hours for workers of school age. The minimum age for employment in other states is 14 years and 9 months, which is less than my daughter's age. There are exceptions for some jobs, such as newspaper deliveries, and for family businesses. My daughter carries out reception and administration tasks in one of our family businesses, for 2 hours, twice a week after school, and as a relief worker for the vacations of other staff in school holidays.

Gail commented "Your daughter has amazingly sophisticated taste for a young girl. My dds are all jeans, t-shirts and mini skirts.

Our business has a strict dress code. I wrote it :). My daughter wears t shirts, shorts and sundresses at home. These are work clothes, and she selects them according to the dress code, which is rather limited.

Patricia commented Did you know that there is a lovely little sewing tool called a "Sharpie" It is a permanent felt tip marker with a fine point? The intended use of which is to tone down/alter thread mishaps such as yours. I have them in a huge range of colours. It might be worth a try if the thread colour continues to bother you."

This sounds like a great tool. I have not come across Sharpies locally. Does anyone know where I can buy these in Australia?

Thank you for all your comments and questions. I really appreciate the feedback.
Karen