Challenge five; Bodice

For this challenge I made blouses. Not technically bodices per se, but for me they are the bodices of my daily apparel, so it sorta works. I actually made both early last week and intended to make more, but instead I loafed around (read: got stomach flu, not fun!). I also neglected to press these before photographing.



I used this mail order pattern from the 1950s I have which is outside of our dates for the HSF, but I once had an older version of it that was unprinted and dated to the 1940s. It might not have been exactly the same pattern but it was almost the same, but sadly we shall never know as my original was the victim of a cruel mauling and munching by a one year old (luckily she's nine now and no longer eats my vintage patterns!). I also used some fantastic vintage buttons! And please not the very cool button band detail on the gold blouse! (Please don't notice that my steam away marking pen did not steam away!)





I used my ivory linen stash for the contrast tops, which also helps me be able to wear these colors! The pink is the stained seersucker from Etsy that I wanted to use for the pink challenge, and no the stains did not come out. The golden is a bit of quilting cotton I picked up as a remnant at JoAnns. I faced the hems with bias tape for weight, used no interfacing and cut down the crazy big revers to a more moderate size (I took off 2.5" on each collar). My earlier pattern definitely had smaller revers! I modified the back pattern to mimic the shaping on the front, I'm not sure if the original had this detail built in or not, it might have been a straight back panel with a shaped front.





As you can tell the contrast seaming is different on the two blouses, that is because I cut the pink blouse from view A, intending to modify the collar to be ivory with a scalloped edge in the pink. It was ugly, very ugly. So I chopped it up and did some reshaping and made another version of view B with some differences. There is no cb seam, The shaping is different, the cool button placket detail is gone and the bust darts are lower. I still like it though, in fact I love these blouses! I will post some modeled pictures soon!

The Challenge: Bodice

Fabric: Light weight linen, quilting cotton, vintage cotton seersucker

Pattern: Mail Order 9379, altered to look like a lost 1940s pattern

Year: 1940s or 1950s, depending on which pattern you use

Notions: Vintage buttons, thread, bias tape in peach and gold

How historically accurate is it? Pattern, fabric, notions are yes, polyester bias tape is no, so 95%

Hours to complete: 2, one hour per blouse

First worn: Antiquing last weekend for the gold, pink not yet worn

Total cost: $9 for buttons, but they are perfect and vintage and I have extras! Actually let's say $5.