I probably have three shirts in my closet, I just don't wear them, buy them or make them and I honestly could not tell you why. I seem to only wear t-shirts and blazers/cardigans.

When I was making up a list of clothes to increase my sewing skills , shirt/blouses and pants went to the top because I have so little experience in either.

So this Marfy was a step out of my comfort zone, both in construction and design. I liked the look of the top but knew it was not something I would normally choose to buy or make.

Then to complicate things a little further , because of course this is a challenging sew, :-) I picked the most slippery, super drapy and oh so beautiful, Dolce and Gabanna grey printed silk . Lucious would be the perfect word for this fabric. Its either deeply subliminal or a coincidence that the Marfy drawing and my fabric look similar!

I bought this last year from Tessuti Fabric, I had never ordered from them before, but they offer free shipping worldwide and over Christmas they reduced online orders by 30%. The three pieces I picked came within ten days in the nicest of packaging... however ordering Italian fabric from Sydney to be delivered to America somehow feels wrong, so I don't know how often I would do this.

The top is a Dior silk taffeta, the middle is the Dolce and Gabbana pure silk that I am using for this blouse and the lower fabric is a Ungaro 100% silk.

SO...It was right back to reality after last weeks two piece skirt, with a eleven piece jigsaw...

I could see immediately that the sleeve would be the most complicated part as it had four pieces.

As usual the pattern is marked with notations, and some guidelines/grainlines, which are always incredibly helpful.

I started off with a full muslin, sewing all the main pieces but excluding facings and one sleeve.

The sleeve as anticipated took a while, as the order of construction was not clear.

If anyone is interested in making this pattern, I found that attaching the bottom and top of the left side first, doing the same to the right and then sewing the upper left and right together was the easiest way to keep control of the shape and pleat.

The sleeve fits perfectly as did my shoulders on the back bodice. The front and lower back are designed to be quite loose, and use two pleats at the bottom of the back and one on each front piece for shaping. My immediate reaction was that as the waistband hits directly on my natural waist, there was no way I could wear jeans or pants with this.

Guess thats why the Marfy girl is wearing a skirt?

Sucked in muffin top nightmare!

I wear a lot of skirts and dresses but thought this would be nice with jeans so I then spent (wasted!?) an entire day, cuttting and slashing the pattern trying to find a way of increasing the length without losing the overall look and shape of the design.

As somebody once told me, its notoriously hard to alter a Marfy, their proportions and design are expertly drafted. I totally agree after having made three new paper patterns and muslins...The second the length increased more than a inch, the wrap around fabric at the waist became unmanagable and needed darts, then the shape started changing and the neck lost its drape...so in the end I left it as it was originally planned, I'm sure I will find a way to make it work with clothes I have.

First up were the sleeves, the original pattern had bound button holes marked rather than keyhole, I don't know if this is a suggestion or not, and i'm pretty sure that these are never added to blouses or silk for that matter, but I loved the idea of at least trying to do them.

Technically a little messy but honestly so pretty ! They took forever, two on each sleeve and two each on each side of waistband.

In order to keep the soft pleat in the sleeve, I ended up removing the organza underlining and re- sewing it back in over the pleat, catch stitching down the middle, leaving the silk supported and eventually the hem invisible.

From there it was French seams for the bodice front, back and shoulder seams before inserting the organza underlining again.

Even though the organza i'm using is super soft and silky , it was still too firm for the silk , so by adding it after, I still get the benefits without affecting the drape in anyway. Ask me how many hours that took to work out!......

The waistband was cut on the bias in two parts and joined at the middle back , I did not add interfacing or underlining to it. It fitted exactly so I machine sewed it in very happily.

and the back facing has been sewn to the neck ties, ready to be joined to the bodice. The back facing has a single layer of organza sewn in and thats as far as I have managed to get.

I have a lot of handsewing to do this week. The inner waistband needs to be closed to the organza, the facings have to be properly fitted and a lining pattern made, cut and sewn in.

But already loving it, very sweet and a little retro which is not usually my style but I am so far very motivated to finish and the fabric is just so lovely to work with.....

Audio book this week has been to finish Kate Mortons The Secret Keeper. It was SO addicting, right up until the last word. Am now half way through Jo Nesbo The Redbreast, am on a roll with good audio books.

Music was Jack Johnson and the Black Keys for chilling out and trying not to stress with the amount of time this project is taking :-)

Book was The fault in the stars by John Green. This was required reading for my Sophomore and it was passed around my kids rapidly, needless to say I knew the end before I started it, they could not stop discussing it between themselves ,and now I can't stop thinking about it. I am so happy that schools require such thoughtful releavant books for teenagers.

and how could I not post a picture of the ridiculous amount of snow we got this weekend, almost lost her a few times!!