Finding and Making THE Blouse

in #homesteading6 years ago (edited)

Pam1A1 Florida crop 1979.jpg
1979

In 1974 or 1975 I borrowed a blouse pattern, issued in 1971, from a friend and made this blouse. I LOVED it and wore it all the time. After 12 years it was pretty delicate and threadbare so I thought I’d make a new one. I contacted my friend and we went through her hundreds of patterns and it wasn’t there.

Old Blouse crop April 2018.jpg

In 1988 I took up the search again, writing to the pattern companies asking about it. But without a number they were unable to help me. So sadly I put the blouse safely away in the cedar closet.

Fast forward to 2017 and the Internet! I had come across a vintage apron pattern I liked and was searching for a source for it. It slowly dawned on me that I probably could do the same for the blouse!

Pattern back2.jpg

I started by determining what the style of sleeve was called: dolman. Once I had that, I started searching for patterns for blouses with dolman sleeves. It took a long time, but I eventually found a re-issued pattern, not the original.

Blouse pattern1 crop April 2018.jpg

That gave me a number to search with and I got lucky! I found a single pattern on e-bay for $5.49, free shipping! So now I had the pattern, I just needed material.

I belong to a worldwide network of hyper-local gift economy called BuyNothing: http://buynothingproject.org/ One of the members of my local group had offered a lot of sewing material a couple years back and another had recently offered ribbon, seam binding, elastic, etc. I was the lucky recipient and I was in business.

Pattern back1.jpg

It took me at least 20 hours, seriously. The cognitive stuff is a bear when sewing. I had to check, double check, triple check to make sure I had laid it out correctly before I cut.

Then even though the instructions are fairly simple, sometimes I got confused and would have to double check to make sure I was going to be sewing the correct pieces together. I even got brave and used some of the lace around the collar!

The old blouse had a toggle and loop closure but with the lace I wanted something fancier, so I used some of the ribbon.

Blouse crop March 2017.jpg

But I did it, and didn't mess up!

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it's beautiful!
Disregarding the chance that I may be becoming a real pill, you could add #howto and you might reach some more people who might take an interest in your blog. And maybe even #photography. You put so much consistent effort in blogging (unlike me, I just seem to be going around bothering people!) that it seems like you could be getting more rewards.

Actually you are a big help, because I just can't think of tags well. I will add these. Thank you! Really!

Great job! I would have given up on finding it. I envy your persistence.

Wow, now that's dedication. I don't have much skill when it comes to seeing but I have a machine and swear I will take classes one day. -Aimee

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I am wondering why I have not gotten the Author Award for monthly posting? To the best of my knowledge I have posted every single day since February 3rd when I put up my introduction.

Please can someone tell me how this works? I read the award description:

"Every time you write a post for each day of the month, you will receive this award.
The number on the banner at the bottom of the award indicates the number of times you succeeded to achieve this objective.

A month begins the first of the month and ends the last day of the month (like on calendars). It is not a date to date month. If you miss one post on one day, you will miss the this monthly award and you will have to wait for the next month to retry to catch this award."

Thanks for looking into this.


Hi @goldenoakfarm, I just stopped back to let you know your post was one of my favourite reads and I included it in my Fiber Ramble. You can read what I wrote about your post here.

Join us on Mondays for Coffee Hour at 3pm EDT in the Steemit Fiberartists on Discord.

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it. :))

It's beautiful! I love that style. Good job finding the pattern.

It's a very cute blouse!

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