The Afternoon Blouse That Took a Week

Well, a week and a half I think.  Maybe two.  I don't know.  I've lost track.  It sure as heck took longer than an afternoon.  Except it didn't need to, I suppose.  All I needed to do was sew a button on.

I tend to procrastinate heavily when things aren't going as envisioned and this project is one of those times.  First off, I blithely traced off my pattern, cut it out and started sewing my wearable muslin.  Only after I was well on my way did I realize that I had traced off the wrong size.  C'est la vie.  I decided to keep going because I was falling in between sizes anyways.  Once I was finished I realized it would be very much not a wearable muslin - nope, I'm not showing it off.  Bad, bad fabric choice.  BAD.  Looked horrendous.  But upside was the too small size actually fit pretty well. In fact the waist and hips needed a nipping in I thought.  Whoot! Whoot!

Feeling bold, I nipped in the waist to hip and cut out my new fabric.  Sewed it up quick as could be and ran upstairs to try it on.  WHAT THE EVER LOVING ----?!?!  

I felt like a stuffed sausage.  Then I realized, the wearable muslin was soft, drapey, have some give rayon.  My new blouse is no give peach skin (aka polyester).  Damn and double damn.  So I wriggled out, very narrowly escaping the need for the jaws of life to extricate me, went back down to my machine and ripped out the side seams and re-sewed them with teeny scant 3/8" seam allowances.  It's better, but only really when I'm standing up.  Sitting down is a bit stuffed sausage-y still.  But it'll do.

So all's well that ends well.  Or so you'd think.  But no.  Not for this blouse.  There's a weird gaping and wrinkling about the neckline despite the fact I ever so carefully stay-stitched.  There's also some weird gaping and bunching at the button tab despite careful stitching and trimming of seam allowances.

Wrinkling and gaping is hard to see in a selfie
- but apparently photo taking was a "waste of time" today to a certain seven year old.
At least I look relatively normal in this picture... can't say the same for the next few.

WHY OH WHY Afternoon Blouse???  WHY???? 

I've wanted this Jennifer Lauren pattern forever.  I waited ever so patiently for a sale and snapped it up as soon as it went on.  I even printed it out and assembled the pattern then cut out my muslin immediately after purchasing it.  (I almost never do that, allowing patterns to age suitably on my hard drive before I ever get to printing them out let alone making them up).

This is my "Fine then.  Just take the picture please" expression.

So I'm at a cross roads with this one.  I wore my blouse today after I finally sewed the button on this morning and it didn't feel terrible.  But I want one that I really love.  I think I'll start searching for new fabric, and for the next one I'll definitely size up to eliminate the snugness, but I'm not sure what to do about the neckline.  Common sense would say take a wedge out where it's gaping, but then I'm worried it's just wonky due to fabric or stretching or me trying to beat it into submission with an iron that was too hot. (oops!)

I don't even know what this is.  Let's just call this entire blog post
"bloopers" and be done with it.

Not sure.   My first sewing project in a while and I can't really call it a win at this point no matter how much I wanted to be able to.  Some days are just like that I suppose.