Of buttons and press studs

Another Smooth Sailing blouse! This is hands down my favourite blouse pattern, and at this point, there's not much left to say about the pattern itself.

For this iteration I used a length of fabric I found opshopping, and paid $3 for. It's a beautiful red floral but the fabric itself was a bit funny. It's a polyester of some sort, and it had a very slight stretch to it, which did make sewing the collar a bit frustrating. It's not a fabric I would have bught new, but I refuse to pass up good fabric at opshops! Make do and mend, especially as this is a 1930's blouse pattern.

The make do attitude really spilt over when it came to buttons. I had sorted out my buttons a few months ago, and was eager to use what I had. As would have it, there was no buttons I had enough of that also matched! I finally decided to go for "fake" buttons. The blouse actually closes with five press studs, and then I sewed on three green vintage buttons over the three top press studs. This worked perfectly. I always wear my blouses tucked in, so the balance isn't thrown off, and these great buttons get to be used. I was also glad to not have to make button holes in the fabric, as I'm not sure how it would have behaved.

I have a new dress to share with you later this week, where I also use the press stud/fake buttons trick, it's a good one!

What sewing tricks do you use?