drama

let's start with a suitably dramatic shot, shall we? I got a button-up crinkled silk blouse in a clothing swap in November or December (can't quite remember), and reconstructed it over break. Well, I changed some of the trimmings, really. It's not like I fundamentally altered the structure of it all that much.

The original blouse had long sleeves, a collar in the same fabric, ruffles on either side of the front placket, and a single ruffle trimming each sleeve hem.

(love that colour, no? glorious! - the winter sunshine doesn't hurt, either)

So I removed the placket-ruffles first. Then I removed the fold-down collar by using my seam ripper to open the top of the collar's band. I took in the sides a little (just a little), and shortened the sleeves (just cut them off).

I used some sari fabric my aunt gave me (it has three different patterns in it, I just used two so that I wouldn't have to cut right through the middle to get at the third pattern) for my trims.

I made a little tube of fabric and pleated it. I stitched down the pleats and then hand-stitched it over the button-placket, only tacking it on one side where the buttons were (so that I could still get at the buttons, yeah?).

I took another strip and pleated it and tucked it into the collar band, and hand sewed the band shut, so that I had a ruffled stand-up collar.

Last but not least, I used the ruffles from the sides of the placket to trim the new sleeve hems. I hand stitched another band of sari fabric over the seam, pleating it as I went.

ya dig?