FO: Style 3954

I'm currently going through a bit of a 1970s pattern thing and I've been picking up a few patterns here and there on eBay if I spot them for cheap and in my size. Some of them I'll probably never make, but I really like the illustrations on the envelopes so I'll keep them to look at even so. As soon as I received this particular pattern, however, I wanted to make it right away. So I did.

Poor old Stu got roped into one of those conversations that probably felt fraught with danger as I quizzed him about which version I should make. "Do you think those puff sleeves are too puffy?" "Is the collar too twee, will it make me look bonkers?". He very helpfully confirmed that yes, the sleeves are a little overly puffy but no, he quite liked the collar. So I cracked on, safe in the knowledge that I had someone other than myself to blame if that collar made me look ridiculous!

The construction on this one was fairly straightforward. My previous project, which will never see the light of day, was made using fabric that was basically just a dick. Compared to that this pretty viscose voile behaved itself beautifully and the pattern came together nicely. The collar isn't quite as neat as I'd have hoped, especially using a contrast fabric causes it to stand out quite a bit but it's not bad enough for me to actually want to do anything about it. Next time I will shorten the pattern for the sleeves a bit, I've taken them up and they need shortening a wee bit more but they will always look a bit off because there are elbow darts currently hanging out halfway down my forearm! I know I have short arms, I own a jacket that was designed for 13 year olds and the sleeves on that are even a couple of inches too long so I don't even know what I was thinking when I assumed the sleeves would probably be ok. Basically I'm lazy.

Other than that I love it. It's a little roomy which means that I don't have to worry about having a big dinner and busting out of it and also that I can wear if while it's still fairly warm because there's a bit of air circulation going on. It's nice and comfortable and long enough that I can mess around with the girls without flashing anything I oughtn't. Now I just need to break them both of the habit of sticking their heads up my skirt.....