I am really busy these days, organising and attending leaving parties, baking tonnes of cake for said parties with greedy guests (you know who you are), cancelling memberships and contracts, trying to find out relevant information about national insurance, taxes,… and obviously decluttering. Decluttering is always important when you are moving. Basically this is why we are moving. There was no way we would declutter just because we do not have enough space for the amount of clutter we own.

One extremely useful way of decluttering is to use up fabric. I know technically this will only shift the fabric from the fabric pile to the wardrobe but there is more space there than on the fabric pile. So it is decluttering. Really.

I told you I meant to make a Frau Aiko. I had already cut the pattern when I realised that I didn’t have enough fabric and made a skirt instead.

So I used a piece of purple cotton. Frau Aiko is a very simple blouse with straight lines. I find it a bit Japanese style, something I really like. I know Japanese style looks best on slim and petite Japanese women which is why I never wear Japanese style stuff but I still bought the pattern, knowing it might not bring the best out of me. I thought it might actually look cool in a plain colour and with a slightly stiff woven cotton. A bit like linen. Even though that wasn’t what I had initially in mind.

Anyway. It turns out it doesn’t look cool Japanese with me in it. And not linen like.

My 6 year old said: Oh, did you make a waterproof apron ? (I assume on of those for crafts with sleeves). I personally thought rather of scrubs. I could definitely hide a stethoskope in those pockets.

I am not entirely sure what went wrong, well apart from fabric type choice, patternlessness (if you knew anything about fabric you’d know this means fabric without a pattern, I guess some boring people would call it plain) and possibly style choice for my personal needs.

I think on that first picture you can also see a few details (I know, once again I thought I could get away with a non ironed piece but you know, it is all done on purpose) which I actually don’t really like. I find the proportions of the sleeve really odd. The combination of over-cut shoulders with a 3/4 length sleeve is not for me. But then that is something that wouldn’t be so obvious if I had used a patterned fabric.

I also don’t like the proportions of the pockets. Although I do like the pockets as such.

Last but not least I think the facing is a bit too narrow.

After all that I would like to point out that I am blaming Frau Aiko for this non-success (calling it failure would be a bit over the top).

The whole concept of a boxy short blouse is just not making me look any better. I might give it another go in a different fabric, something with more drape. And more colour. Obviously. Although I do love the colour as such.

But enough talking, lets have a look at the result.

In case you were thinking that clearly this blouse needs to be teamed up with trousers rather than a skirt, well I did try and it did not look good at all. Maybe I was wearing the wrong trousers.

For the pictures I decided to wear my skirt (I have already altered it to take it in – it fits now almost perfectly) because Frau Aiko is in the same colour as the skirt hem:

Ok, I had been wearing the skirt all day and couldn’t be bothered to get changed.

Looking at the pictures now, I find it actually less odd than it felt. Still don’t think I will ever wear it. Might just go to the charity shop. In which case I would have successfully decluttered 🙂

And now, I’ll send this over to RUMS to see what others have been creating this week.