The Cute White Blouse is shaping into something...

I should start by saying that, for me, sewing is just a matter of experiment most of the time. I guess in Japanese you would call it tekito, which I suppose you could translate as "how you see fit" or, as I prefer, by the seat of my pants. Even though, this time, I'm making a shirt, not pants.

Things have been progressing along nicely though, so I thought I'd share my process. I'd like to note, too, that, I don't intend at all to teach anyone how to sew, as I am just really learning myself, but if you find yourself reading this, I hope that, if you do sew, you can relate to my errors, frustrations, and, if nothing else, get a laugh out of my strange way of doing things, shake your head, and say to yourself, "I'll make sure not to do it that way...."

So, first off, I make a pattern! Of course! And what else better to make a pattern out of than The New York Times Sunday Style section!? Although I did download a pattern from burdastyle.com (as mentioned in my last post), other than the sleeves, which I also modified a little bit, I find it frustrating trying to follow patterns--mainly because I have to adjust the sizes anyway. So for the most part, it's just me trying to measure myself with the tape, and adjusting from there. Rule number one: always cut things too large. For this pattern, I gave myself a few extra centimeters on all the seams--it's so much easier adjusting them later.

After I cut out the pattern, step two was sewing the shoulder seam. I don't really know what the traditional steps are for piecing together a pattern, but, for me, if the shoulders are sewn, it's so much easier to try it on and adust the other seams.

After that I pinned together the armholes to get an idea of how things would sit, and I made the darts at the bust. That was fun...er...no it wasn't. Measuring the placement of the darts wasn't so bad, but getting the angle the same on both sides was a little bit of a challenge. But it worked out.

After that, it was just a matter of sewing the side seams, finalizing the arm holes, and making the sleeves. Making the ruffled sleeves was easy--you can find plenty of tutorials at youtube.com or just by doing a search on Google. The hard part for me was actually sewing the gathered sleeve to the armhole! (My seam ripper is my best friend!) Amazingly, though, I managed to sew both sleeves onto the body and neither look deformed, and they match! Yay!

Finally, I trimmed the bottom of the back piece (I cut it too long) and hemmed all around the bottom. No problems there! I find it much easier to pin and measure out things on the floor. I can stick the pins directly into the rug so things don't move around so much. I always see people's posts and pictures of their fancy sewing rooms, but, I live in a small city apartment, so I do just about everything on the floor, including sewing. (My sewing machine sits next to my computer at a low coffee table, so literally, I even sew sitting on the floor.)

All I have left to do is the cuffs on the arms and the button panel at the front. I hope to finish it over the weekend, but opposite of "normal people," I sew mostly during the week, as I work on Saturday and stay at my boyfriend's sewing machine-less apartment the rest of the time. Ah, well. Patience, patience. But so far, it looks like a shirt! What a relief!