Friday, November 21, 2014

The Old Maid Blouse

Ok girls, I started this blog with an easy refashion and a broken needle in my first sewing machine lesson. Crap! that hurts.

But fear not! I've been practicing the whole week and today I'm proud to bring a great transformation before your eyes. Let's start off with this beauty that I found at Value Village the other day for $4.99 bucks. Obviously I don't have the way to find out how old it is but holy cow!! something with that style and cut must be very very old... from the past century perhaps?

Ok fine, I'm exagerating just a little bit. The truth is, the blouse looked too nice and well preserved to be 100 year-old. In any case, I took home this great archaeological treasure which also was the perfect candidate for a refashion with style!

What did I like about it? Besides the good quality of the fabric, it has the rare virtue of being un-wrinklable. Believe me! I washed it by hand in warm water and didn't show a single wrinkle! I wish my 30yo face skin was the same!. Finally, I liked the fine lace line around the neck and the front.... kinda charming don't you think?

Making the bias-tape
Anyways, I was still convinced that I could save this old-maid from another 100 years of solitude* so I started by removing the long boring sleeves. I was debating whether cut them off entirely or maybe leaving a little bit of... But... No! wait! for petite girls with wide back and prominent shoulders like me, the last thing we want is to grow... horizontally... so... sorry guys, you have to go! I still needed to polish up the rough border of the new short sleeves so I made a bias-tape out of the leftover fabric from the old sleeves and sewed them to the blouse.



Now the waistline. The original cut was so straight... I think the previous owner must have been a very conservative woman, I wonder if she was a nun, an orphanage principal... an Amish? anyhooo... honey, you're in different hands now and you're going to show off a little bit of curves! I said a little bit!!! I want to give the illusion of a thin waist, I don't want to look like a bad sausage wrapping. To do this, I wore the blouse backwards and started to pin the new silhouette.

It would've been easier if I had a mannequin! [sigh]. Well, me and the mirror will have to do the work.

Now back to the sewing machine. A tip for beginners like me: if you're a fan of push-up bras, try the blouse in wearing one of those, just to make sure it'll fit your boobs. Also, after pining your new silhouette, I strongly recommend using a pencil to draw the lines where the stitches are supposed to go... once you run the sewing machine it could be very difficult to keep them on the right path... and go slowly!.

And there it is! With a little bit of patience this old-cranky-maid turned into a fresh and young executive ready to grab some cocktails after work!

Look at me being proud of my new blouse!

*100 years of solitude is actually a great novel of my favorite author, Gabriel García Márquez. Nobel Prize 1982.

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