Butterick 4659 UFO

Recently (when looking for something else) I came across a bag with two unfinished blouses in it. In both cases I'd hit a problem with them (many many years ago) and put them to one side.

Here's the first one. I remembered the pattern as the sleeves are quite distinctive. It is Butterick 4659, I think I have cut View B in a size 22.

Pinned to the blouse was a scrap of paper which said :-

    Tried the top on, 2 issues

    1 - understitching shows

    2 - remove fabric from centre front / front facing (see shaded area) and a little drawing.

    Back not bad maybe needs deeper seams at waist line.

So I'll need to start with trying it on to see how the fit is now. This could go back as far as 2007 as I can't find any mention of it on my blog. The pattern is dated 2005.

Fortunately I kept the scraps with the garment so I could use them if needed.

The second is another turquoise stripe and is much earlier still. I originally made a skirt from this fabric. You know the style two rectangles pleated or gathered onto a straight waistband with a side zip one side and a pocket the other.  And then made a shirt with what was left, only didn't have enough for the collar, so it's an oddly pieced thing I never got to work. It all has no overlocking so must predate my first overlocker (mid 1990s). From the length of the waistband on the skirt I must've been in my late teens (late 1980s). I remember unpicking the skirt some years ago in the hope I could finish the shirt. My aim would be to make myself a shirt of some sort from the bits as best I can.

Project queue, UFOs or just wadders

I was reading somewhere where the writer referred to her UFO pile as the Project Queue. This puts a slightly different spin on it, but I fear it is spin all the same.
In my head the Project Queue is stuff I have planned but have not started yet. Then I have 5 boxes of things I plan to recut, went a bit wrong, or are otherwise paused. Some of these go back a very long time.
Because they are put away in boxes they are not impacting too much on my conciousness.

Are these items a source of great potential for when I get a recycling head on my shoulders, or in fact just a load of old junk I should get rid of? Some of it I keep because I love the fabric, but plenty of it the fabric does nothing for me at all any more but its not wearable garments that the charity shop could take and I'm not willing to put in the time to make the garments up. It seems a waste to throw it away and so I keep it.

Since I have chocolate brown on the machines at the moment I might well have a little trawl through the boxes and see what might get finished off or resized down quickly (I have some old too large clothing) and be stuff I could wear or use.
Maybe I can even be brave and get rid of some of it.

Spring is in the air, maybe the spring cleaning bug will hit!

Tackling a UFO

I have several boxes of unfinished projects which I have NOT moved back into the lovely repainted sewing room.
I promised myself that I would take a look at some of the projects in there and see what I could finish off, recut as something else or just put into the council fabric recycling collection.

So this evening I am going to see if there is anything which piques my interest.

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Found a cut out and barely constructed knit dress with no instructions, so have worked on that for a little while. Its going to need quite a bit of work I think. I had lengthened the pattern, but seem to have rather overdone things as it is floor length. It fits round the butt (my fattest bit) but nowhere else - its too wide in the shoulders, gapes at the back neck and upper front.
Since I have a few knit tops I've made recently which fit quite well I should be able to use some of those to tweak the fit of this dress.

Its a wild print so we'll see whether it is actually wearable out into the real world when its done :D