Beautiful bloomers (and failblouse)
March 6, 2010
Pattern: Madeleine Bloomers from Colette Patterns (it’s free! go get it!)
Fabric: Yellow silk twill purchased from Denver Fabrics
Notions: 1/4″ navy blue ribbon, some comically old buttons I picked up at Winmil for .50
Time to complete: 4 or 5 hours(ish) (it took me longer than the pattern said it would because a. I’m slow; b. I’m extremely slow when working with silk c. I spent a lot of time overcasting my seams because they began raveling the moment I started looking at them)
Modifications: only one band of elastic at the waistband (pattern calls for two) and the button/ bow combo on the waistband. It looked naked to me without anything there.
Total cost to complete: Probably about $10
Will I wear it? YES.
Made while watching: Season 1 of Glee
This is a fantastic pattern (and free! Seriously, go get it). Sarai is a brilliant pattern-writer, and sewing it was blissful. The only thing I struggled with was threading the elastic and ribbons through the waist and leg bands. I think they were getting caught in the seam allowances.
This project is even inspiring me to actually post my photos to Flickr, which I never do.
In other news, I tried to make a silk blouse from Sew U with the rest of the fabric, and it was ill-fated from the start. It never passed the “Would I buy it?” test, but I thought it would be a good learning experiment. And it was…just not a pretty one:
I had high hopes that I would change my mind during the process, though…but I began to dislike it more and more, especially after my seams came out so strangely. Can anyone tell me why a seam that looks like this when laying flat on a table:
slight puckering at the top, but mostly flat
looks like this when hanging:
flat on top, puckering on the bottom
?? This was very frustrating, and the final kick in the pants I needed to abandon this project…after spending most of Saturday on it, sadly.
I have a few more FOs to show you and am finished stippling the wonky star top…it does look much better now that it’s washed and quilted. Thanks for cheering me on!
