Oyster grey

I now have a resident photographer for the next 2 months (my daughter is here for a long visit), which means that taking photos should be an easier task, but I don't know how much my sewing time will get cut.  As promised - the grey outfit.

 

The skirt was cut last winter and forgotten.  I was on a skirt kick, but then got tired of churning out skirts, one after another.  Also, as I think I mentioned, I came to a standstill when I got to the bound buttonholes on the back vent.  There's something very scary about cutting random holes in a garment, i.e. making buttonholes.  I'm glad I finally finished this UFO.  The pattern is Vogue 8542, c1992.  The number has been reused for another pattern, and I was unable to locate a picture on the internet.  Of course, I did not have the presence of mind to take a picture of the envelope until after I'd downloaded the other photos, so you'll just have to accept a description.  It's a pegged straight skirt - 3 panels in front, 4 in the back.  Given the vintage of the pattern, the lengths are rather odd for to-day, so that got altered.  In the original pattern, the almost-ankle length skirt has buttonholes on the back vent, and I used that detail on my version.

The fabric is a grey wool gabardine - not one of my favourite fabrics, because it always wants to be difficult.  Pressing properly takes forever.  I can't figure out why, despite being very careful, I ended up with little divets   in the fabric fold next to each buttonhole.  This happened after I finished the wrong side of the buttonhole.  Yes, there's proper interfacing in there.  I basted around each buttonhole, before starting the hand sewing.  As for the odd placement of the last buttonhole - that wasn't planned that way.  I made a "calculation error" when snipping off fabric for the mitre at the bottom of the vent, and had no choice, but to shorten the skirt a bit, and that threw off my careful buttonhole planning.  See - it is scary cutting random holes in fabric!  I decided that since I cannot see my back side when I'm wearing this skirt - I will ignore the shortcomings and wear it anyway.

The blouse is Vogue 2634.  

Well, that's the pattern I started with, then I made some changes.  I wanted a blouse with a big floppy bow.  Looked through all my "floppy bow" patterns.  Seems they all require a fair bit of fabric.  I only had 2 yards (not even metres!) of this polyester print.  How to make it work for the look I wanted?  Well - I did a lot of chopping and redrawing.  First I lowered the front neck edge a little and made it a bit of a V.  I extended the back over the shoulder to give the look of a yoke front.  The front dart got moved to the shoulder and became tucks into the yoke.  I wanted gathers, but by the time I get through alterations for a small bust, there's not much of a dart left, and gathers looked like puckers - not a good look.  The sleeve got widened and the cuff got a few tweaks also.  OK, OK - I should have taken more detail pictures to show, but - the way things are going at the moment, we're lucky to have taken these.  Besides, I'm still trying to figure out a "system" for getting things set up for a post.  One of these days I'll figure it out and be able to a blow-by-blow story.  (I'm in awe of those people who do tutorials with pictures of every step.)

Last note - may-be I need Rosy's son's opinion on whether this look is too Miss Marple?  I have been overdosing on Miss Marple and Poirot DVDs, and that's probably why I decided that I needed this floppy bow look.