The One Yard Wonder Blouse That Takes 2 Hours To Make!

Is it a Dolman blouse? Is it a Kaftan top? Maybe this is one of the million scarves-to-blouse tutorials on the Internet. :(
Surprise! While those blouses are beautiful in their own right, this is not a blouse that a monkey could make. At the same time though, it doesn't require a jillion pattern pieces that take fah-evah to put together...inevitably entertaining your husband with endless source of amusement. :(

This One Yard Wonder Blouse is for a size small....and I don't claim to be the best teacher with tutorials either. If you haven't made a top before, this is probably not the tutorial for you. If you are a larger gal, you may need more than a yard of fabric too.

Recently I made my mom a blouse for an early birthday gift (see post here: http://knotwhatsheseams.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-role-reversal-behind-sewing-machine.html). I could imagine her going on many,many dates in that blouse. Here is me modeling it. It is definitely her, NOT me! 

I gave her a cross between butterfly sleeves and batwing sleeves. She was truly impressed and thrilled. I barely had enough (one yard) to make her size small blouse and those sleeves! However, I knew my mom would NOT wear anything that exposed her shoulders and upper arms even though she is tiny and youthful looking. Mom is stuck in the 60's too so even though I gave her the peasant top style (which has made a huge insurgence in popularity as of late) I made her come into the milinium with those sleeves. :D You're welcome mom.

Onto me and my blouse! So, I have no problem showing my shoulders and my arms even though I am ghost white, burn easily, and my arms aren't as tiny as mom's. I also couldn't see myself wearing a "boxy" top and the all over blue was more mom than me. I got the "cousins" of that fabric as well. I am normally not an orange or a green fan either but the "cousins" fabrics were so pretty!

For me, I wanted a cap sleeved blouse, a slight scoop in the neckline, and I also wanted to try out the tie sleeves method. It was better to do so on something I would own than a customer pays for!

I only had a knit blouse to go off on. The fabric I would be using is cotton. I gave myself some extra seam allowance because the fabric wouldn't stretch like knit of course.

The bottom picture shows what the blouse looks like if turned right side out. I got the fabric, folded it twice, and put half of my blouse on the fold (so I would have TWO symmetrical pieces of my blouse....front and back.) As you see below, there was a space on the shoulders that remained folded and uncut on both the front and back. I had a reason for this as I will show you later.

I also wanted to experiment with color blocking. I realize this is not a new idea. It's just new to me. I got some white jersey knit and cut out two rectangles 17 inches by 3 inches. I pined these right sides of fabric together to each side of the blouse. This would give me just a bit of stretch, a little more room, but the tailored/fitted look I wanted as well.

Because of the knit, i wouldn't need to serge or overlock the seams. But I am also working with cotton too. I love the look I get from stitch #18 and #19 on my sewing machine. I find that my mom, friends, and family and customers all love the seams being finished with those seams too.

I like to hem my sleeves before finishing the sides, or in this case, the shoulders. It gives me more room to work with.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to put elastic in the hems of the sleeves. I decided against it after I saw how awesome the shoulders came out later.
Now it's time to sew up the shoulders that are only halfway open.....

I pinned the space that is opened....

Here I am showing you that one could easily turn down the edges where the shoulder
splits open, hem them, and have a split drape sleeves that begin at the shoulders.
That wasn't the look I was going for though. 

Here is the blouse right side out, ironed but not top stitched yet, and the neckline and bottom hem have
 not been done yet.

I tucked the side panel of knit on either side while ironing.
When worn, it will lay flat or opened out. 

 So far everything has been straightforward and easy peasy. Sew up sides, finish hems, blah, blah, blah. Here comes the "fun" part. It's not really hard, it's just tricky to explain (at least for me!). Above you will see me measuring only the part of the shoulder that had to be hemmed, NOT the portion that was folded but not cut during the cutting out pattern pieces stage at the beginning. I am going to make a rectangular casing out of the same fabric as the blouse on the top of the shoulders. I could make this casing go the entire length of the shoulders. But, I didn't want the shoulders cinched up that much. I wanted the shoulder/sleeve to cap or round itself over my shoulder bone--more flattering in my opinion. This rectangular piece for my blouse was 5 inches by 3 inches. After the seams were finished (before placing it on the blouse), the casing was 2 1/2 inches by 4 1/2 inches.

 I also ironed the rectangles length or long ways. This visible crease will be helpful later on. You can also mark your rectangle with a fabric marker down the center if you prefer. That just seemed too much trouble to me plus I didn't want to mark up my pretty fabric even if temporarily.

ONLY SEW THE LENGTHWISE OR LONG WAYS OF THE RECTANGLE. DO NOT  SEW THE SHORT ENDS! (I am pointing to one of the short ends in the above picture).

Is it just me or does these rectangular casings remind you of dorky high school band uniforms with those gaudy appliques or decorations on the shoulders?! You see the same decorations or rectangular thingies on high ranking military officers' uniforms. Even old men think they are too cool with their outdated dress up shirts with rectangular loopy things on the tops of the shoulders! I bet if I were to raid my mom's boyfriend's closet, there would be PLENTY of those shirts hanging in there! :D

Don't worry, the blouse won't remain in this state. :P

Remember that ironed crease down the length of the rectangle (shown
here with my beautiful nail file)? Sew straight down the middle of the rectangle
following that crease.

Ta da! You now have two pockets or casings as shown here with my
super cool fabric pencil and nail file :P

Measure your ribbon, cord, or in my case, bias tape enough to go through the casings and
be able to tie in a bow at the end that faces the sleeves (not the neck). I did not cut my bias tape in two
pieces. I left it as one and looped in through.

How stinkin' pretty is this?! (I had to use a safety pin to feed it through
because my casings were narrow). No more old man shirt/dorky band uniform
here!

Admire your work for a second....or two...or three. Then text your friend about how much of a genius you are. :P

I loved the bias trim so much that I measured the neckline
and remaining trim and determined I had enough to
use it on the neckline.....

Since I wasn't finishing a raw fabric edge, I wouldn't need my go-to
stitch. I used #4 stitch instead.

I was thrilled with the end results!

I was so impressed with my blouse so far that I even pretended
the seam in the very middle of this picture WASN'T wonky....
a certain 4 year old bumped my arm to steal a quick
hug and kiss while sewing the neckline!

I'm always bewildered at how people can get their young kids to take afternoon naps.
My kids would literally have to be on their death beds to nap!
But I bet they would still drag a bunch of cans out of the pantry
and assemble them in Stonehenge type configurations just for grins!

I was so enthralled with the narrow bias trim that out of curiousity I measured how much was left and compared that to my bottom hem measurement. To my shock and delight I had barely enough.

 When I mean barely, I wasn't kidding! I didn't even have enough to fold over the end seam! However, a little cute zig zagging stitches over that part and no one will notice a thing. I mean, no one should be staring at your butt or hips anyway right?

And it looks fine to me after it was all said and done! See?

Show off pictures...... :D
(Crappy pictures don't do the blouse justice given I was in a huge rush to get to my son's school)

I'll have my hubby take better pictures later!

.....I'm so happy with my blouse I am going to wear it to my Bible Study I teach at the jail tonight!

++If you don't have the time to make yourself a blouse, I will be selling a similar one in my shop later this week. I promise the one that the customer gets WILL have enough bias tape and WILL NOT have the evidence of an affectionate 4 yr old bumping me while sewing! haha.++

The Role Reversal Behind The Sewing Machine

When I was little, all I had to do was ask mom for something and it would end up being secretly made in her sewing room and then magically appearing under the Christmas tree months and months later after I had watched enviously all the other kids in the world play with that doll, wear that outfit, etc. I didn't really understand or appreciate the time and energy put into those creations. maybe I would have been less impatient had I known back then. I am just glad when I asked her for a cat that it didn't come handmade too! Fortunately it was the breathing kind and it only took about 18 months or so to get one. :P

Now it's mom who is dating. Mom who is the great grandma. Mom who goes to fun places while I clean dirty noses and toilets with weird kid experiments stuck to them. I am the one chained to my house and making my children the ever-growing list of things they beg for me to make. Somehow even after losing 44 pounds I still resemble Santa Claus to them! haha.

I guess I do have the white hair and wear red a lot.....

I recently bought from the Fabric Shack (an online fabric store...try them out!) some coordinating/cousins fabrics from the same designer. One is predominately green and the other is predominately orange. The third is mostly blue. While I love all of them (duh), the mostly blue one up close screamed mom's name, not mine. Chances are she will be on more dates than me anyway and she needs something NOT from 1960 when she was on her last date. ;D

Here are the three fabrics....

I'm not normally a fan of these colors. But i really love these fabrics!

So I went to work on mom's blouse while juggling customer's orders on their clothes at the same time. I won't post the pictures of the blouse due to her not getting it in the mail yet....and I want it to be a surprise. However, I will tease you with a snap shot of the neckline. Mom wanted a very plain blouse. I could have done a empire waist, drawstring and/or tie waist, embroidery, shirr the blouse, had an elastic bottom hem, etc. But mom wanted the plainest blouse possible. With this sort of print, I hardly call it plain though! And, I personally find it much more modern and sexy and stylish than something from 1960. :D

My hat's off to mom...I simply don't know how in the hell one can re-enter the dating scene after 40 years! The dating scene is brutal as it is !

I promise the neckline isn't crooked...I was VERY busy and in a rush when I snapped this shot!

Printer Vomit And How To Look Classy In Today's Slutty Fashion

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I am launching my new store on Etsy, Knot What She Seams, this Saturday and I am super busy. Saturday happens to be the second to the last day of the month....I would have done March 31st, but it's Easter. I would have done April 1st, but I didn't want my store to be associated with the idle cares of April Fools day. (For those abroad, this another stupid United States holiday that has no merit or meaning....kindly disregard!). I also couldn't open on April 2nd or 3rd, as my older (minor) child has state exams in school. Ugh. I see many psychotic episodes in my near future (stress worsens his Bipolar II disorder).
Thus, March 31st is the holy grail of a day to commence my store opening.....and now you are none the wiser in my nonsensical ramblings and can further understand why my family hardly ever contacts me. ;P

In the midst of becoming a new grandmother for the very first time (is that a double positive or improper English?!).....UGH!....I am finding myself also busy with selling the remaining stock of my last Etsy shop, Far Out Sprouts (who knew closing a store would make sales jump through the roof?!). If any of this matters to you, by the way, you can kindly become a new fan of my Facebook page. Warning: I have a weird family too....and even though I hardly ever use Facebook for personal means, that's the only way my family cares to communicate with each other. Maybe this is why I am hardly ever on Facebook! (all of my store updates, blog stuff,etc is automatically updated to Facebook so I don't have to mess with any of it....or see the new tattoo my ex boyfriend has, or see the new body piercing my 14 yr old has, or the guy my 15 yr old beat up and was suspended from school from....or the uber marijuana joint one of my kids smoked last night...or the new horse and buggy my Mennonite sister got yesterday from a religious-dorks-flea-market bonanza......you get the picture!

I am uber-stoked about my new store and hope it is as successful as my last. I think it will be because I am now selling FAMILY apparel, not just kiddie stuff. I am also selling my home decor my baby sister (who has a Mercedes model horse and buggy from  the Yuppie-Mennonite-Are-Us store) strongly encouraged me to sell. Ok, let's see if this works. The last time I took my yuppie Mennonite sister's advice, I married a guy I met online who used me as a baby machine AND turned out to be a cross dressing homosexual....so I am always leery now to take anyone's advice!

I also have been buying and/or downloading fabulous sewing patterns like a mad woman lately in hopes I can further my sewing techniques coupled with this sewing machine that does everything except clean my house and make coffee. What a tragedy it would be if I didn't use all of it's bells and whistles!!!

That leads me to my primary reason for writing today....hope you haven't gone into a coma yet or clicked off this page yet..... :/

My printer is awesome. It's almost as awesome as some of the clothes I have made for myself lately. But it has a plug...and that means I can ruin it or break it or it can self implode. I get a lot of printer vomit here and there. My husband isn't so happy about it either....after all, the real kind of vomit sends him to his car so he won't instantly vomit himself (I'm glad he didn't use me as a baby machine because that's all babies do....vomit and poop!).

Enjoy, for your viewing pleasure, what I'm talking about below. This is printer vomit. It's of this FANTASTIC pattern I bought from ikatbag.....here's the link of her patterns. Not only does she have the best patterns ever, and quite worth the price, but she answers her email at stupid times of the night and doesn't laugh at you for your outrageous mistakes (my computer decided to have early onset dementia and "ate" the pattern link for the PDF file I purchased from her). At least I don't think she laughed at me.....

Here is the pattern I got (OMG, I can't wait to get the fabric for it!!!!!!!)....

...and here is what my printer did to her pattern...... :O

look closely....closer, yes, that's like 5 copies of EACH PAGE PATTERN!

....and more on the floor because not all FIVE COPIES of each page fit on the queen size bed!
BTW, the floor is gray, not poop brown....I swear!

As Dana Carvey would say, "Ain't That Special?". (OMG. Dana Carvey is like a funny version of my my middle sister, the Mennonite OG--Original Gansta--,and my mom!!!).

I am still trying to figure out (beyond the obvious) why I have printer vomit a lot.....my printer needs an excoriation?????

Onto my second reason for posting today....if you are still with me and able to follow my train of thoughts....which regularly derail and stop to refuel......:P

Today's fashion. WOW. I'm not going to harp on it like the Wednesday night Bible study lady at my church does with everything on this planet. Let's just say that lady is like an abstinent version of my sisters and mom.  This lady really, REALLY needs to get laid and take a chill pill......but I digress. I love sexy clothes, looking hot, and fortunately because of my mom, I still possess these fine traits even as a grandmother who is almost 40 years old. But come on people.....I am not going to expose myself even if my new hubby does like me wearing revealing clothes....even outside the house. So what does one do if they are a novice sewer like me, or worse, doesn't sew at all, and don't belong to a nudist camp?! You buy the slutty clothes on the retail rack, go home, chop up the outfit, and hope it actually looks good and fits. That's what I did to the number below.....

the shirt is hanging well below the table because it was rather long

Meet Ms. Swimsuit Coverup. As a coverup, she posses more fabric than the average slutty ensemble on the market today. I love the fabric too. You can't get enough polka dotted knit and if I were to buy it from the fabric store, I wouldn't get this much of it for $9. Polka dots are so hot right now, the fabric stores are having a hard time keeping it in stock and it's pricey too....at least in my secluded corner of the earth!

But Ms. Coverup has a downside....she has NO chest covering. I mean, it's as if this coverup only covers you lower torso and your butt. Hmmmmmm, I need some chest coverage here no matter what look I am going for and for whatever reason i am using the outfit!!!! And folks, I must be the milkman's daughter because unlike everyone in my family on BOTH sides, I am flat chested. So if your slutty outfits you are selling doesn't cover my speed bumps, you need to seriously reconsider the clothing you're selling!!!!

I took the coverup and tried it on...without children present so they wouldn't vomit (here we are talking about vomit again!). I discerned where the shirt will end at my hips and chopped off the bottom. This gave me PLENTY of fabric to play with....like half a yard!

the slutty mu-mu is now shopped in half nearly with the bottom  half gone....

I recreated or copied the top band that had pretty ruffles...the main reason why I loved this shirt. I just took my chest measurement, compared the shirt's measurement in the chest, and made more of that ruffled band to cover up my chest. The ruffled band, by the way, fit in the width, but NOT the length. So, I had to ADD fabric to the top of the shirt so what little I have doesn't fall out and greet people. Seriously, it was waaaay more than just cleavage!

Again, I am just copying the ruffled band and adding the copied panel to the top of the shirt so it appears as if the shirt was made with a longer bodice/breast panel/chest part. It was simple because it is knit. I got ballpoint needles for my sewing machine, threw on that gathering presser foot (or ruffler foot if you are fortunate to have one), and gathered along the fabric. I placed the gather fabric onto a flat, non-gathered panel in horizontal rows...I think I had like 3 or 4 rows. Above you see the original chest/bodice band with black elastic thread running horizontally. I didn't have that color elastic thread (where do you buy it??) so I used my white elastic thread...as you see it towards the top. From the front you will not notice. It all looks the same. You can't see where my added panel starts and ends!

I tried on the less slutty mu-mu that is not really a mu-mu now that it hits my hips. It now kinda reminds me of  maternity sleep shirt the Kardashians would wear. :( I have their bodacious ass size, but not the money or the breasts. Time to go back to the sewing machine and shirr that waistline. Mr. Little HATES me wear anything maternity looking!

This was very simple. Again, hand winding the bobbin (keep the top thread normal thread!!!) with elastic thread, and marking the two or three rows of shirring I wanted right under my chest (empire waist), I just sewed right along those lines. With shirring, you must sew with the front (right side) of the fabric facing up, or looking at you while sewing. That way the elastic thread is under the fabric on the wrong side. This will be quite an unsightly project if you don't do this! My top thread was black so you can't see the thread....just the shirring effect. I also had my tension on 2 (I don't even know what it goes up to, but auto is normal sewing and 2 does the trick--and then some!) and the stitch length at 4.5. Normal stitch length for a straight stitch on my machine is 2.5. Again, with knits, you just don't have to work hard on getting it to ruffle. Often it likes to ruffle even when you don't want it to!

I tried on the shirt and admired my work. Sorry, the 10 yr old was NOT interested in taking pictures that day. I promise you it looks stinkin' FABULOUS! I'm so impressed with myself....I had gotten a disappearing fabric marker and marked where my tiny cleavage "crack" was and decided that was where the shirt would come up to. It actually worked! The shirt met the top of my cleavage PERFECTLY! And yet, I don't look like i am joining a convent either because the shirt is still rather low for many people's tastes.

The 10 yr old did help me pin my ruffled straps. I had leftover fabric and didn't like this shirt sleeveless. This is NOT a good idea if you are flat chested and have children young enough that they tug on your clothing and OOPS! Your cute little speed bumps fall out as the shirt is pulled down by your little one. :( (big sad face!).

These straps are more decorative than functional so I didn't mind them loose enough to fall down on my shoulders.

8 inch by 4 inch fabric strips that didn't need to be hemmed as it is knit.....here they are after ruffled with elastic thread (four rows of shirring short end to short end)....

what they looked like before shirring

The ten year old didn't have an issue pinning the straps to the shirt where my bra straps were. (of course, I will be wear a strapless bra with this shirt, but I wore the strapped one to help the kiddo know where to pin). The 10 yr old very much likes girls and has begun to show interest in all things females wear/use like bras. UGH. We are starting puberty early!

Anyways, that's how you make a slutty shirt classy and fabulous. You will see much better items in my new store. I promise I am carrying clothing for women that have real boobs, not speed bumps. I know I am a freak of nature and most women need clothing that fits curves. :D

Thanks for not passing out with the long post!