Celtic Blouse Finished

This is the first piece, in hopefully a very beautiful celtic/renaissance ensemble!

As of right now, I am making it for fun, but if I can go the the Reformation Day Faire in Peoria, then I will wear this there as well.  I used Simplicity pattern 3623, and as far as I can tell, it is the same as Simplicity's OOP* pattern 8855.  If you know this to be false, let me know.  Anyway, here are pictures of both of those...

Now on to the pet-peeves.  Having done other renaissance blouses before (mens), I found the neckline "facing" and the cuffs very odd indeed.  This pattern has you sewing the facing on the inside, then turning it to the outside and top stitching it. ?!  Whatever, it makes you go very slowly.  I actually basted the whole thing before I went around with the machine to make sure no puckers turned up.  Time consuming, but worth it if you want it to look nice.  In the top right corner below, you can actually see that I double stitched it, just for neatness sake. In my humble opinion, it looks swell.  You can also see that I stitched a celtic knot in the neckline.  I have post earrings that same knot, so I thought it was fitting. :-)

Top: Shoulder gathering - Neckline detail

Bottom: Hem - Cuff

The shoulder gathering is also kinda weird.  There is no way to make it exact, but then, maybe it isn't supposed to look neat?

The hem isn't seen while the blouse is being worn, so I'm still bewildered myself as to why I did this(because it took forever).  I used a fancy machine stitch that matched my knot at the top, and it looks really sweet, but nobody will ever see it.  bummer.

The cuffs are also sewn on the inside and flipped. (like the "collar") and then hand stitched down on the outside.  Of all things?!  Also, the button holes I did by hand because the key to the machine that tells me where the buttonhole setting is, is missing.

So there you have it!

*Out of Print