Violet blouse and buttonhole blunders

Here are some photos of my Colette patterns Violet blouse as promised. I finally added the buttons. I was initially going to use red buttons but then these green ones caught my eye and I decided to go with them instead.

The delay in the buttons being added was due to a slight mishap with the one-step buttonhole function on my Mum's sewing machine, which I was using back home in Scotland over Christmas. I just couldn't get it to work! After much initial panic that I'd broken my Mum's machine I decided to wait till I got back to Belgium and use my own machine's 4-step button function. It actually turns out that it was indeed a fault with my Mum's machine (and not my clumsy nature) as she took it to be serviced to find out what the problem was.

The man in the shop said that a crucial piece of plastic had come loose inside and it would cost a ridiculous amount to replace. So my Mum will just have to do without her one-step buttonhole function and use her old machine instead for buttonholes. Interestingly, the sewing machine repair man said he saw this type of problem quite often and that he was always disappointed when he went 'under the bonnet' of seemingly 'good quality' machines to find lots of flimsy plastic inside! A reminder that it is useful to really know your machine, inside and out. This is something I definitely need to learn about! Incidentally, here is an interesting post from Madalynne on the subject.

But back to the blouse and the buttons. I actually inherited a rather large button collection that should keep me going for a while, a mix of both my Granny's collections. So I shouldn't run out of buttons anytime soon.





I didn't make any alterations to the pattern at all. I'll definitely be making it up again. The fabric was cotton lawn left over from ages ago when I made the Colette Sorbetto top.

Now I just have the urge to add peter pan collars to everything!