Finished: SewOverIt pussybow blouse

 YES! It's a finished sewing project.

I do love a pussybow blouse and the pattern by SewOverIt looked perfect. I'd also been eyeing up the fabrics from Atelier Brunette for some time. Pattern, meet Atelier Brunette dobby viscose in Cactus.

I only made one size adjustment: the shoulders are a size smaller than the lower part. I trace my patterns, so I traced the larger size lower body and smaller neckline/shoulders, then simply pivoted the tracing paper and copied the larger armhole to fit onto the smaller shoulder.

The main alteration I made was that the pattern isn't written for French seams. The sleeves are open for a few inches and button at the cuffs, and the pattern is written so you can press the seams open and sew the vent edging down, but I needed to learn how to put a vent below a French seam. I found an excellent tutorial online and it was pretty easy in the end. 

The fabric hangs beautifully, but it has to be ironed and hung up, otherwise it crumples like the England batting order. (Small cricket joke for you there...) I'd definitely use more from the company, but I'd been considering some more viscose for a dress, and I definitely wouldn't use it for that. I'd look like a bag of rags by the time I got into the office after sitting in it on the train for 20 minutes.

The year of self-care continues...

I really wrestled with putting the second photo online. I'm really not happy with my shape right now, and having to buy a bigger bra looks better but having to do it felt terrible. I resisted the new bra for ages and carried on squashing myself into (and partly out of) the ones I had, but wasn't prepared to be all lumpy in the workplace. Anyway, my shonky shoulders have come to the rescue because they're acting up again and have driven me back to the gym.

I'm actually enjoying being back at the gym, and it did make me think: I decided to make this a year of self-care after last year's lockdowns and deadlines really knackered my mental health. I'm still not going to beat myself up when I decide to eat pizza – my mental health is absolutely my priority, everything else hangs on that – but it's improved massively, and the other aspect of self-care is being responsible for myself and that does mean exercise when I'm up to it. After just a few sessions my shoulders are definitely improving, and I feel a lot more flexible and mobile generally, so I shall try to keep this gym thing going a bit longer if I can.