The blouse from Hell!

I spent the entire weekend and most of today sewing the "Blouse from Hell!" It's Butterick 5300 by Connie Crawford and is part of her modern fit or some crap. It's supposed to emulater RTW. If RTW fit me the way this blouse does I am going to become a nudist and y'all don't even want to begin to see none of that!

Well just let me say I read a couple of rave reviews about it and since I'm supposed to go to a three day workshop where Connie fits that particular pattern to you, I figured I'd give it a shot before hand. I probably won't be able to go now because of the cancer but it's clear to me that if this blouse didn't kill me cancer ain't got a snowball's chance in hell!

The saga begin with me making five, yes five, different muslins. That took all day Saturday. Finally I figured I might as well bite the bullet and cut some fashion fabric. What in the world made me choose this print?? To condense this horror story I'll list some of what went wrong

1. Hideous fabric print


2. Super dense fabric had to resort to using pattern weights


3. Sewed, topstitched and edged stitched collar only realizing after the last stitch that the collar was not on properly had also clipped and trimmed the seam. Picking all that out was super fun


4. Picked all major seams apart at least once...most way more than that


5. Placed the front edge along the salvage knowning the 5/8" seam would take care of it..wrong, some seams are 3/8"...the front edge was of the 3/8" variety


6. I cut the wrong size front and it was too tight across the front shoulder so had to stitch a 1/4" sleeve seam to get a little extra room


7. The bust dart on the pattern is about 1" above the apex of the bust


8. The DD dart is humongous


9. The sleeve would fit Godzillas arms with room to spare not to mention there ain't that much easing the world to fit the sleeve into the armhole

I could go on but I think you get the picture. So here's my review of the pattern

Sizing

Xsmall--6x

Did it look like photo/drawing on the pattern envelope one you were done sewing it?

Yes

Were instructions easy to follow?

Yes

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern?

I particularly like the written instruction for the collar and the ease of which the collar went together and the forward should consideration. I disliked everything else about the pattern. The dart is above the apex of the bust! I don't know who came up with the sleeve design but they need to be horsewhipped (in my humble opinion). I really disliked that some seams were 3/8" while others were 5/8"

Fabric used?

I'm not sure but it's some kind of peachskin polyester. They could probably make bullet proof vests out of it because regular sewing pins don't stand a chance

Pattern alterations or any deisgn changes you made?

Widened the back, lengthened the waist, redesigned the sleeve. I sewed View B but used the collar and stand from View A.

Would you sew it again?

No but I'll use it as a guide for future projects. With all of my complaining it's hard to believe but with all that went on I learned a lot like

1. I need to make a wide back adjustments (about 2")


2. I was able to solve the twisted sleeve mystery...my wide upper back was pulling my sleeve for extra fabric resulting in that horrible twisting


3. My upper body is 1" longer than patterns


4. Because I have forward shoulders, my shoulders are really flat on the back and pointed on the front. I used my inner Sinatra and "did it my way!" Now I have a sleeve pattern to use as a guide


5. Somewhere along the way I've acquired some of the patience of Job because I should have trashed that project midway. I'm sure I will now. It's just plain ugly!

Conclusion:

I'm going to use what I learned with this disaster to make a really cute blouse tomorrow!