The Burnt Tomato Blouse

This project plan began when I decided I could use a blouse to wear with a particular, hard-to-match vest I had knitted for myself several years ago.

I took the vest to Fabricland to match it to the fabric. Then I picked out this pattern, which is Vogue V887 -- and decided to go with option F in the shorter length. And then there was the problem of buying buttons for it. Nothing matched this odd shade of... what should one call the colour of this blouse's fabric? Orange? Rust? Burnt tomato? After looking in Fabricland and every store on Queen Street that carries buttons, I settled for a pack of buttons that were a suitable colour, though they were larger than a blouse's buttons usually are. I also had to buy twice as many buttons as I needed.

Here's the finished blouse with a skirt that it just happened to work with perfectly. The only alteration I ended up making was to shape the blouse a little through the waist -- it was going to be too unflattering otherwise. The buttons still look too big to me when I look at the blouse itself, but judging from this photograph they won't to the casual observer. The blouse took much longer than it should have as I seemed to make so many mistakes. My first attempt at running the tucks was a disaster and had to be taken completely apart and done again. I had to redo the edgestitching on the collar several times -- it turned out the problem was that my sewing machine needle was too dull, which caused it to skip stitches. I also had some problems with the buttonhole and button bands. But in the end I prevailed. I like the blouse and am pleased that it will go with a number of other items from my wardrobe.

And here the blouse is with the vest it was specifically chosen to go with. They do pair well. I especially like how the necklines work together. But that dark brown skirt doesn't quite go with the vest, and neither do any of my other skirts. I think I might have get the vest a skirt too.