Vogue 8598

I've really needed a basic white blouse, and I've been stalking Vogue sales at my Hancock for Vogue 8322, but they never have it in my size, so when Vogue 8598 came out I snapped it up.  I love a shoulder princess seam and those double puffed sleeves are too cool!

Here it is!  Sorry for the hanger pic.  Hubby is in Portland for yet another interview.  I'm having some fit issues though, so I'll get some modeled pics when he gets back so y'all can help me puzzle that out.

Despite my fit issues, this is a really cool top!

The sleeve is so interesting!  Here is a picture of the gathering at the elbow.  It is achieved by gathering the lower part of the sleeve into the upper.  The pattern piece is totally weird.  Basically the upper part of the sleeve is slashed in half at the shoulder to the elbow and a large section of the middle is missing.  You seam the upper sleeve together, then gather in all of the excess from the lower sleeve.  Very cool!  the sleeve is then gathered again into a cuff.

The sleeve is also puffed at the top.  Lots of gathering in this blouse!!  This picture also shows the shoulder princess seams, as well as the self faced button band.  The pattern calls for a total of 16 buttons.  That was a lot of buttonholes!

The pattern has a two piece collar with stand, which I like for a basic blouse, but I decided for this one to leave off the collar part and just use the stand, to give it a mandarin collar effect.  I like it!  I also think it gives the blouse a bit of a turn of the century feel.  I'm not sure I'm in love with the little pearl button I used on the collar.  I may swap it out for another of the clear ball buttons that I used on the rest of the blouse.

So, the pattern...  As I said, tons of fit issues, which I will leave for another post.  It has been a while since I really paid attention to the instructions on a Big 4 pattern, and can I say, they suck.  I did use them for the sleeve assembly, but for the rest of the blouse - no.  Seriously, this is a menswear inspired blouse.  Why in the world would I set the sleeve in the round???  Besides my sleeve phobia, I didn't see the point, so I set it flat.  I also was not about to do miles of slipstitching on the cuffs and collar.  I attached them from the wrong side and edgestitched them down.  They also instruct you to staystitch and clip the princess seams.  This isn't a bad idea generally, but these are not sharply curved the way an armhole princess would be.  Even with my FBA, it was totally unnecessary.  I wonder if anyone actually ever looks at these instructions critically for the individual patterns or do they just cut and paste from a block of standard directions?  Very annoying!

Despite my gripes about the instructions, I really like this pattern.  I think if I can iron out my fit issues, this will be a great TNT for me.