Tag Archives: Vogue 8879

Once upon a time there was a shirt, a man’s shirt.  This shirt was superficially unremarkable, but was made out of a wonderful microfibre that had extraordinarily silk-like properties.  Soft, ripply, with a quietly glossy sheen, it felt wonderfully cool and smooth against the skin just like silk; but unlike silk it was as tough as guts.    It barely ever needed ironing, thus earning the everlasting approval of the laundry maid of the house. 
 After a few years of regular wear it was designated “old”, signalling the end of any special care in its laundering, from then on it just got tossed in the machine with jeans, whatever, no special cycle.  It soldiered on, looking just exactly as lusciously silky as it always had.  
The Indestructible Shirt.  Winning further admiration from the laundry maid, who alone in the household truly appreciated such a magical fabric … all the benefits of silk but without the maintenance… ! o-kaaaay!
After twenty years of use, its owner carelessly tossed it in the Salvoes bag, whereupon the laundry maid astutely retrieved it and planned a feminine new life for it, hehehehehe.

The End.
Well maybe more like a brand new beginning!

Technical bizzo…
The pattern is Vogue 8879, view B.  Funny thing; Spotlight had a $5 pattern sale last week, I bought um, 6 patterns *blush* call Patternaholics Anonymous; I need help!! anyway, I bought some of the more glamorous interesting and unusual designer Vogues that caught my eye, and then this funny unassuming little one too.  Guess which one was the one I was most excited to try out first.  Ha!
I love the split back; it’s quite elegant in my opinion, and just quietly sexy without being the least bit tarty.
The old shirt was completely cut it apart to make the new one,  and I modified the existing button band and sewn-on buttons to accommodate the split back.  The old front is now the back of the new shirt, and the old back is the new front.  The sleeves! it often astounds me how difficult it can be to cut a new thing from an old thing even if you think the old thing has masses of fabric; the sleeve pattern pieces barely fitted on the old sleeves, taking up the full length of the sleeve from the cuff to the armscye!  Amaaazing!
One new buttonhole was required at the very top, and the left breast pocket was picked off and repositioned it at a funky angle on the lower front of the top.  All the seams are flat felled to honour the original beautifully flat felled seams in the original shirt: although obviously none of the original seams remain after it was hacked apart I still felt compelled to try and reproduce those immaculate finishes in its new incarnation too.

Rather than the quirky but fabric-hungry twisted sleeve bands of the pattern, I made hidden, shaped facings for the lower edge of the sleeves instead and I finished the neck edge with a narrow bias cut strip; these were cut from a scrap of deep blue real silk, the leftovers from this top, and stitched, under-stitched then top-stitched.

One thing: the pattern stipulates two way stretch fabrics only; but I found that this view B is so loose and easy fitting that my decidedly non-stretchy microfibre version is absolutely fine to slip on over my head.  Don’t need to un-do even a single button.
So it’s got that going for it too!

Details:
Top; Vogue 8879 view B, blue microfibre, a refashioned mens’ shirt
Skirt; my own design based on Vogue 7303, white stretch lace, details here
Thongs; Havaianas