You know when you come up with a brilliant idea, rush out and buy the fabric, and then take so long to actually make the thing that the moment, or season, has almost passed before you first wear it? That's the story with me and this sleeveless Bloomsbury, an idea of which had been percolating in my brain since I first conceived of the blouse at all. I picked up with pretty broderie anglaise from Sew Over It back in the early summer and then kaboom, was hit (well, not unexpectedly) by a series of demanding commissions that put all selfish sewing firmly on the backburner, if not off the stove altogether.
I finally got my act together and stitched the blouse up in a flurry of activity before I went to Wilderness festival at the start of August (and yes, it's taken another full month to get this blog post done!). With belated speediness I omitted the buttonholes and stitched the buttons directly through the two button bands to fasten the back, with the exception of course of the button on the collar band.
How crumpled I look in these photos!
As the pattern is drafted for sleeves I removed some excess from the armscye by shaving half an inch off each of the side seams at the top, blending it down towards the waist. I then finished the armholes with bias binding; I couldn't get a great colour-match but with the big ruffle it's not really visible...
Sadly I think this hack will get little wear now until next year; these photos were taken on a walk in Richmond Park, on the last warm day before autumn seemed to set in. You'd hardly believe it was even warm enough for my Seamwork Weston shorts given the moody skies!
Anyway, I'm not the only person who had this idea this summer – one of my lovely Kew pattern testers, Laurene of
Les Pleurnicheuses, has also made
a fabulous sleeveless Bloomsbury. I'll never look quite as elegant in mine, but I love it anyway! x
