A Fitting Story - Vogue 7828

The adventure began with a frantic call from a friend, T who has just finished a blouse and wanted help fitting it.  Now T is not a strong proponent of the fitting muslin. No, let me restate that, T couldn't be bothered with the time it takes to make a fitting muslin.

This picture is from Vogue Fabric Stores

So T walked in the door with a spectacular blouse, Vogue 7828, made up in a silver gray silk organza upon which she had added embroidery designs. The designs were from my Lines and Flowers

collection so I was predisposed to like them from the beginning. (Hers were in shades of gray and white on a silvery gray silk organza). The blouse looked fabulous. Well, it looked fabulous on the hanger. Then she tried it on.



Hmm... fabulous was not the word to use, the thing just didn't fit. The sides didn't pull all the way to the side, the neckline gaped, shoot, it was just wrong. So we started in. What happens if you put the buttons here? The overlap looks good but the gape at the neck now resembles a swinging cable. When you move the buttons over a little to the left, the lines look cockeyed. What if you leave it a little looser? Can you pull the top down more to lessen the neckline gap?  We messed around with it for several hours. We pulled it one way, pushed it another tried finesse and tried brute force. It was like physical abuse to fabric. The answer was, she should have done a muslin. 

So I've done a muslin for the pattern and am ready to sew it up. It's tempting to use the same exact designs T used but I think that every time I wear the top I'll have one of those little devils perched on my shoulder whispering in my ear, "You copied, you copied".

So off to a plan B - different designs placed in a spot other than the one T chose to use.

More later.