The angels are in the details!

This post was inspired by my clean-up/clean-out for our move next month. It is a brief farewell tribute to an old blouse I made, which I found...in a ball, in a box... in a dark corner... waiting to be discarded.

I love details. The tiny elements that make a garment extra-special, if only to the wearer, can be so powerful.

Like pintucks...



And beaded fagotting...




And interesting buttons (in this case bone beads on a false closure - there are actually snaps underneath)...




I was inspired by a December 1996 Threads article "Heavenly Embellishment" to try the beaded detail, and I was in a vintage-y, batiste-y, pituck-y kind of phase, so I designed and draped this blouse from the ground up. I was so happy to have learned how to drape and draft a pattern for a collar, that I wanted to create a blouse using all of the elements I loved. I wouldn't recommend it.

As I have matured in my sewing, I have found that it is best to isolate these details, not pile them all on one project, as I did with this monstrosity... (below) I am not bothering to iron it, or give it a new life -- I will simply cut off the bone buttons, and save the strips of fagotting for use on another batiste project in the future. I do remember that 12 hours of handwork went into that beading!