My vintage Simplicity 1430 blouse.

I have been feeling in a bit of a sewing slump recently. As fellow blogger Amy put it, I think I lost my sew-jo. I was beginning to get a bit worried, as I really wasn't feeling in the mood to sew much at all. On Sunday morning I sat cross legged in the middle of my sewing room and laid out all my patterns on the floor. I stared blankly at them, trying to select one that I could make in a day and that wouldn't be too much in cost for the fabric.

I really feel like sometimes I am my own barrier, like I build up some of my patterns in my mind to be harder than what they actually are. I know I do it, and am thinking of taking up Tilly's challenge and journaling my sewing productivity.

I think that might give me a little insight into my sewing routine. You see, Sunday morning I was sitting deflated on my sewing room floor, and by that evening I had one blouse completed and three other projects lined up ready to sew. I think I definitely need a happy medium between apathetic and obsessive :-)

As promised, here are the photos of the blouse I made. I used the Simplicity 1430 pattern I purchased from Etsy a number of months ago. Why did I wait so long to sew it? Well, I purchased this pattern early on in my 'discovering vintage' stage and did not understand what "unprinted pattern" actually meant. You can guess my surprise when I opened the envelope to find a bunch of shaped tissue papers with nothing on them but holes of various sizes. It was like sewing Morse code! I was scared half to death and placed the envelope at the beck of the shelf.

After a few months, and much vintage sewing blog reading, I finally understood how to use an unprinted pattern. On Sunday morning I went to Spotlight and bought this black fabric plus a cute floral print for Tasia's Crescent Skirt pattern (more about this later this week).

Sunday afternoon was spent sewing and watching the Formula One Grand Prix. This pattern was an absolute breeze to sew! Seriously, the pattern has very clear instructions and the finished garment has a very polished look to it. The pattern suggested fastening the sleeves with snaps, but instead I made use of self cover buttons for the fastenings.

I also made a few other small changes.

- I removed one of the waist darts so that it better fit my pear-shaped body.

- I didn't include bias tape around the neck as the fabric was so sheer.

- I used buttons on the wrist of the sleeve instead of snaps.

This blouse took me around 4-5 hours from cutting to finish. Like I said, it was a very straight forward pattern, and my size only used 1.2 meters of fabric, which made it a very cost effective sewing project.

~ I am so happy with how this turned out ~

~ Side view - you can see how the waist darts give a more 'fitted' look ~

~ Button up at the wrist ~

~ Bow ~

I have this Liberty of London fabric on my shelf, and I think I will use it to make View 1 from next...

Thanks also everyone who left me comments on my last post. It was really nice to hear your good wishes, and thanks heaps to everyone who pointed me in the direction of gluten free help! You're all gems :-) I will let you know how I go.

Sam xox