I often make a wearable muslin of something and then never get round to making the real thing. Well stop the presses, because I have actually had another go at the 1954 blouse which I made for the Lutterlohalong, and I am quite pleased with myself.
I improved the fit considerably by moving the front darts closer to the centre, I added a side zip, reduced the size of the armholes, and abandoned the facings in favour of bias binding. The first one seemed a bit baggy but this one is perhaps a bit tight, which is odd because I didn’t reduce the size at all.
I made it out of some leftover fabric from a yet unblogged item, and I tried very hard to position the buttons so that it had a double breasted appearance, but I had so little fabric to work with that I couldn’t quite pull this off. The only change I would make is to make it a little longer, and perhaps to do a sway back adjustment, although it didn’t have this many wrinkles in the back when I first checked it out – perhaps it was all the sitting down I’ve done.
I was mindful that the button on the top closure needed to be super light, so imagine my joy when I found this 1950s green one in my stash!
Not a lot else to say about this except that it has motivated me to revisit my 1936 blouse which I don’t yet feel as though I have made successfully. I wore the blouse for our One Year One Outfit challenge excursion to the Fibre of the Gods Alpaca farm in Toodyay, with Nicki (thisismoonlight) and Carolyn (handmadebycarolyn), where we admired the Alpacas
and enjoyed the conversation between Oliver the cat and one of the Alpacas
Hazel, the owner, gave us a guided tour of the mill that she runs with her husband, and it proved to be fascinating – we could see the whole processing cycle from fleece to spun yarn, which can be seen on their Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/thefibreofthegods, and, of course, we finished in the shop where we all managed to buy some beautiful wool to contribute to our challenge. My wool came from Molly.
In a nutshell: Pattern is Lutterloh 1954 blouse being made as part of a challenge with Amanda. Fabric is a gorgeous cotton/silk voile from Potter Textiles, which I bought a couple of years ago. Pants are Style Arc Flat bottom Flo and shoes are Castille from Castille, Claremont. Thanks go to Nicki for planning our trip to the Alpaca farm and for driving us to Toodyay.
It is very nice top! I like the neck finishing. It would be one of my basic pattern to use over and over again 🙂
Having a lot of fabrics in my stash I am doing very often the same – just making a ‘wearable muslin.
BTW You are in a very nice place – sunny and warm…
What an improvement on the fit! This blouse is a beauty. And The Fiber of the Gods sounds like heaven! It must be hard not to spend a fortune in their shop.
I did spend a fortune and it was a lovely place.
Such a lovely shirt and day! You got a great snap of the Alpacas.
Cool fabric! Your blog is one of my new favorites to read. It is both interesting and unassuming.
Thank you so much Lisette!
I love the fabric used for this top – it looks so different to the ‘muslin’. Aren’t alpacas sweet? I envy you that day out 😃
We had such a nice time, and the rest of the fabric from this top is quite different, so stay tuned!
I really enjoyed having you here too 🙂 So nice to meet 3 lovely ladies who appreciate what we are doing here and enjoyed our alpacas as much as we do 🙂
So glad Oliver our mill inspecror remembered his manners 😉
Sue you are just having way too much fun 🙂
That’s a beautiful top, Sue. I love the play of the actual button against the buttons.
Oh my goodness alpacas!! What a great setting.
Aren’t they adorable?
Your blouse is looking so different with the fabric and fit and it looks great on you. Oh those alpacas look gorgeous and to have it near home and wool, sounded like it was quite a day.
It was a lovely day, thank you Sharon!
It was a lovely day out; I thoroughly enjoyed myself too! and am looking forward to seeing your alpaca creation 🙂 Your blouse looks so nice in person too. I love the button fabric
Love the top on you. Now we have to wait and see what you do with Molly’s wool.
This blouse turned out so lovely! I’m curious, do you often do swayback adjustments? The adjustment (short upper rib cage) I made on my second muslin caused all sorts of other fitting issues, so I’m going to return to my original muslin. I really want to figure out the fitting trouble and move forward with other Lutterloh designs. The drafting was so easy and straightforward that once I get this figured out I feel like a whole wardrobe is open for interpretation!
Hi Amanda, I rarely do swayback adjustments – I think about them after the event! I think the Lutterloh patterns do give so much scope for having an original and well fitting wardrobe.