Bow-tie Blouse Remixed

It is a well-known fact that I have a huge crafting crush on Gretchen Hirsch of Gertie's Blog for Better Sewing.  Recently, my mom bought me her book, Gertie's New Book for Better Sewing, which I think we are supposed to be "sharing."  Sure.  At any rate, I highly suspect that I will make every pattern in the book over the next year or so.  I've already done the Portrait Blouse - I may post it later, but it was a very straightforward pattern and a quick project.

This post, however, is about the Bow-tie Blouse.  For this project, I poached an old shirt from my husband's Give-to-the-Goodwill pile.  He bought this shirt at least eight years ago - he wore it on our honeymoon - from H&M.  I chose this shirt to upcycle because a) it's beautiful and b) it already has buttonholes done (what can I say, I hate doing buttonholes!)

Obligatory "before" pic.

I started by ripping apart the shirt at the side seams and removed the collar and sleeves from the body of the shirt.  In my enthusiasm to get to work  - and no, I did not do a muslin of this shirt, shame on me - I neglected to actually make sure the fabric was wide enough at the upper shoulder to accommodate the pattern width.  Newsflash: it wasn't.

I was a quarter circle short on each shoulder - both front and back.  You can see here where the fabric was missing (under the pins):

Oops!

To fix this, I cut out a new semicircle pattern piece, adding 5/8" seam allowance along the curved outer edge and removing the seam allowances at the shoulder seams on the original pieces.  Here's the new piece pinned:

And here it is from the right side. 

I think it gives a fun little cap/flutter sleeve effect and looks like an intentional design element instead of a screw up - at least, that's what I keep telling myself. 

The other modifications made were to trade out the standard men's oxford buttons for these nice black ones.  I know it doesn't scream "VINTAGE" quite like oversized fabric-covered ones, but it works.

 Also, I had to recut the collar band.  I've never thought of myself as being particularly stout in the neck, but the collar band cut to the pattern specs was a strangling me.  I lowered the neckline by about 1/2" all around and that fixed the issue.  I've read from other sewers that they've had the same issue. 

Here's the shirt in all it's refashioned glory...

My dress form, Colette, modeling for me.

...and here it is in action.

It's me!  And my duck friends!