Finished: Early 1940s Blouse - Simplicity 3364 Pattern Hack

After my last post I ended up not sewing at all. The hot weather dried up my sewing mojo. Or rather, my motivation to do anything at all. Ironically though I have been knitting a lot. Knitting a winter dress during a heatwave makes total sense, right?!

Today I'm sharing one of my favorite makes to date - the blouse that goes with my 1940s palazzo pants from Simplicity 3364 from 1940.


This blouse was a completely spontaneous make. When I started to cut out my 1940s slacks I had a lot of fabric left over. So I decided on the spot to cut out a blouse and sew it and my trousers simultaneously.



I had been wanting to make a 1940s button front blouse with a waistband for a while after I unsuccessfully purchased Advance 2275 in January (the seller had already sold the pattern elsewhere and forgot to remove the listing, sob). But I realized adding a waistband to another blouse pattern would be really easy.


All I did was look for the natural waistline on the pattern, fold the pattern half inch below that (seam allowance), take the waistband pattern piece from the Simplicity 3688 trousers and gather the entire lower edge of the blouse to fit into the waistband. Piece of cake! I wanted to add ties to the waistband like the Advance pattern but I didn't have enough fabric to do so.




The fabric is a soft cotton that looks a bit like linen. The color of the fabric is hard to describe - it's a shade of red, but it's far from red red. It has a hint of burgundy / wine / claret but it isn't really any of those shades either. The fabric has some body to it making it perfect for this blouse's puffy design. One thing that annoys the crap out of me with this fabric though; it creases terribly when washed! And with all the details this blouse is a nightmare to iron, ugh! With my terribly creasing palazzo pants combined, it looks as if I never iron anything :')


I used these chunky early plastic vintage buttons from my stash (i'm not sure whether they are Bakelite or celluloid, or maybe something else). They have four holes giving lots of possibilities for decorative sewing!


Coming Monday, the weather will be cooling down slightly. Hopefully it'll bring my sewing mojo back. Meanwhile, you will find me on the couch knitting a winter dress!