Finished! Simplicity 3328: 1940s blouse

Another first for 2015! I managed to get the whole way through finishing a project from one of my vintage patterns. I was hugely inspired last year by A Stitching Odyssey's vintage pledge, but not able to join in, that when I came across her twitter pledge this year, I decided I should get involved.   I don't have many vintage patterns, but enough to fulfill a pledge of sewing 3 this year.  

 

Original Filterless Glory

With all the optimism and impatience of starting As Soon As Possible, I decided to crack open the Simplicity 3328.  A 1940's vintage, the slight drape of the top and the collar fastening appealed to me .. The pattern picture has a slightly casual aspect to it, yet in the right fabric it could be quite smart and formal.  













Like many vintage patterns I've come across, it comes in a fixed size.  The pattern I have is for a 40 bust - a little on the large size for me in today's world, but as I've also read that vintage sizes might be on the lean side of generous I thought to just cut it out and see what would happen when I made it up.  


Fabric:  I chose a drapey fabric from my stash.. something that would have cost me about £1.20 per metre from the fabulous Dongdaemun in Seoul.  Slightly stupidly, for that price, I didn't buy very much of it.. and so had to be careful cutting it out.   I'm not sure what it is exactly, it has a slightly crepe texture to it, which I like, and it's not too sheer - so possible to wear it without needing a vest or camisole underneath.  

Construction:  There were a few things I didn't quite understand about the pattern, namely the lack of pattern pieces for facings, apparently a common practice with vintage patterns - saving valuable paper space and also an assumption that the sewer has knowledge of cutting these.  I didn't realise much of this until after I'd cut out my pieces and found myself needing to find fabric for a collar and back neck facing  \@@/  Still... good lessons to have learned!   

Likes: I like the look of the collar and the tucks in the front and back of the blouse give it a lovely fitted shape, despite being so fluid a fabric.  Also, I struggled to figure out what to do with the front placket (these seem to be this month's bugbears) so I hand tacked then hand sewed it into place to be better able to control the fabric.  I'm not so stoked with the finish, but it's done and holds its shape…

Collar!

Buttons that match the pattern! Brilliant

Next time: I definitely want to make this up again and have earmarked some less slippery fabric.  However, I could have done with interfacing the collar and placket to give extra support overall to the blouse.  Now that I know how to construct the placket I can pay extra attention to the finishing, and stiffening it slightly would have helped prevent it from flopping around the sewing machine^

I think I'd give myself a 6/10!