Kittys Drawings

Hello everyone!

Apologies for the lack of posting last weekend. We didn’t get back from Blaigowrie til quite late. The big ride on the scooter was quite a success…I won’t tell you how I managed to get more scratches in it (eep) but I will tell you that I got down there and back without anything seriously bad happening. For those folks not from Australia, Blairgowrie is about 100kms south of where I live in the inner suburbs of Melbourne (depending on which route you take)…It’s right at the bottom of Port Phillip Bay and is a popular spot for city people wanting to get away for the weekend. Mind you, it’s hardly ‘country’ or even remotely isolated…Melbourne is such a spread out city that the entire trip down the bay is built up with plush beach houses of varying scale and style.
Anyways, we had a good time – playing board games, drinking and just blobbing about. Yay

So on to this week’s sewing project…

This has been the first project for the year following my new resolution of taking my time and finishing things properly. I’m so happy with this top that I can even show you the insides The pattern is Mccall 6475 from 1946 and I used a cotton blend of some description in a nice orange floral. I don’t usually go for orange but I loved this print as soon as I laid eyes on it. It’s another one from Savers from way back. The fabric has a really great drape to it and is soft and airy. It may be a rayon/cotton blend…Not sure. It washes ok from the little swatch I tested….so who knows what’s in it.

A few notes about the pattern and finishing:

• I made view C which you can’t see on the cover but the only difference from view B is the peplum at the bottom isn’t gathered as it’s designed to fit under a skirt.
• I don’t think this would work with anything but a super drapey fabric. There’s a lot of gathering that needs to fall nicely. I’m happy with my fabric choice!
• It’s VERY blousey – considering how small the size is, and it IS meant to be roomy, but there’s a LOT of room. Tight, structured waist definition is absolutely essential for styling this!
• The cute details are a bit lost in this print but I would love to make this out of a plain, maybe even sheer fabric

• I finished as many seams as I could with rayon seam binding.
• The side seams are zig-zag stitched because I ran out of that colour seam binding!
• I made a narrow hem finished by hand.
• The side closure consists of three snaps and a hook & eye on a placket. This is SO much better than a zip – And yes I will keep going on about that forever.
• I omitted the shoulder pads….for obvious reasons. I guess some light ones wouldn’t look too bad and they are very much essential for the era…One day I will make some and see how they look.

Yay! I’m really pleased with this top and I definitely want to make more versions of it. It took about a weekend to do – The bound seams were fairly time consuming but if you omitted those this would take no time at all to make. Once again, this is another one of those 40′s patterns with neat little details. I love how the sleeves attach to the neckline. Mccall’s patterns from the 40′s are especially excellent. Side note: I’m actually waiting on a heap of patterns to arrive from Etsy, eBay and a super special Mccall’s from Patterns From the Past.

Notice I also got my replacement grey shoes from Asos? The 38 fits much better.

Well that’s all for now. I have to start on a new project…I don’t even know if I’ll have anything new to show for next week! I think I’ll have to actually do some drawing! How bout that!

Heh…

Ciao then!