Altered: Red Blouse

A while ago, I dropped by an estate sale and the clothing was the only thing that caught my eye. Most of the clothing was $3 a piece, and I took out a bunch of blouses (probably from the 1980s and 1990s) to try on. After going through my pile of potential blouses, I only liked one enough to buy: a red button up Elle blouse. It’s polyester, but it’s nice polyester; it’s silky not scratchy fabric and drapes fairly well.

Although I love the color red, I don’t really own red articles of clothing. Pretty much anything is made in black, but red (or any other color) happens less frequently so there are fewer opportunities to buy a red garment. Also, a large reason I don’t often buy red is that I only think certain shades of red look good on me, so I avoid anything that leans towards orange.

The blouse was large on me, so I bought it with the intention of altering it. Even though I’d never made a blouse sleeveless before, I figured there’d be a simple way to do it. And after looking online I found some instructions that seemed doable (although altering it took me longer than I anticipated).

I think I did an okay job (and at least it’s wearable unlike it way it was before). If I look closely at the armholes I see problems (like I didn’t quite cut them at the exact deepness on each side or the stitching is a little messy). But from a distance it looks fine. It was my first time doing it so I can’t really expect perfection. Hopefully I’ll just do a better job next time.