New blouse for Christmas

We bought our youngest a pretty yellow velvet dress for Christmas.  This is so she can wear it to the Pantomime, church services, and ballet. It's sleeveless and my plans were scuppered when she refused to wear a cardigan with the dress!  Four year olds are very obstinate. We should probably have more backbone and make her wear what we tell her to wear.  But we are softies and want all of these Christmas treats to be fun, not a running battle.

Oliver + S, 2 + 2 Blouse

So a shirt underneath would be the solution.  Unfortunately, it is difficult to find woven shirts or blouses for young children.  Almost everything is knit jersey which doesn't look smart (smart: the British term for looking well dressed and well put together.) It really would be easier to make a blouse than to shop for one. I had this lovely, good quality poplin in my stash.  It's an odd colour to go with gold/yellow, but it works.  It was meant to be a summer blouse for me, me, me!  Me, me, me really does go out the window when children enter your life!  I'm not sure that I ever would have matured without them.  I really had no idea just how selfish I was before them.  But that is a whole other discussion.  Back to sewing!

I turned to an Oliver+s pattern I had in my stash.  The 2+2 Blouse.  Since this was "Get 'er done!" sweat shop style sewing, I omitted the back placket with all the buttons.  It is a design detail that isn't really needed for the child to get into the top.  I was also "take no prisoners" with the pattern, cutting out the needed size five rather than tracing and preserving the other sizes of this expensive pattern. Bad girl!

I was in a hurry, but I did take 15 minutes to have a play with the embroidery function on the front patch.

I used french seams throughout and overcasted the armscyes.  It's a kids blouse, so it will definitely be machine washed and dried many times.  My lazy way to french seams is to sew initially with a quilter's quarter inch foot and then encase the seam in a 3/8 of an inch seam allowance.  That adds up to the standard 5/8 of an inch seam allowance in most patterns without a lot of faffing around. The seams are not as narrow as they could be, but this method is extremely accurate and quick!

As a consequence, I was swapping between three different feet, and I was in a rush.  I brought the needle down hard onto the wrong foot; broke the needle; threw off the timing belt; and damaged the bobbin case!  Luckily, I did this at the end of the project.  I was able to limp through the final hem on the bottom.  My machine is now at the repair shop.  Interestingly, the man fixing it says that I should NOT oil my own machine, but to let him do it at its yearly routine maintenance.  Interesting.  He also made me feel good by telling me I got a cracking deal on it, and that Janome MC11000 have been good machines so far with few problems.  Yea!

Shown with the yellow dress bought from Boden.

As a final note, if you are still with me after all this babbling (if you are: I commend you!), we went to the Nutcracker Suite at the Royal Opera House yesterday with the girls.  My four year was mesmerised.  She acted with her best princess manners throughout and was spellbound the whole time.  She told her father and I that it was the best weekend of her life.  We couldn't be more pleased.  Her only disappointment?  Not seeing the Queen!  It is the Royal Opera House after all.  We explained that the Queen is old and may not want to go the ballet everyday.  She agreed yes, the Queen was old like Grandma Cookie: she likes to put her feet up:-)

Drosselmeyer gives Clara the Nutcracker

Hans Peter (the Nutcracker) and Clara dance together.

The Sugar-plum fairy and her prince.

View from inside.

Hope you are all having a great run-up to Christmas and not getting too stressed!