float like a butterfly, sting like a bee

too much of a good thing? rubbish.

for the holidays victor asked me to put together a wish list of things his family could get me. one of the items i listed was three yards of this beautiful bee print from the cotton + steel mustang collection.

i had planned to use the fabric to make Nora and Etta figgy's ayashe blouses, as proclaimed here. however victor's very generous family sent me four yards.

I mean really...could he be any cuter? no he could not. 

with more fabric i was able to make nora and etta jump rope dress mashups, as seen here. however I still had a decent amount of the fabric left over and a bobbin of grey thread burning a hole in my machine, so i started to brainstorm other projects.

enter the butterfly blouse from the oliver + s spring 2015 line.

something about the sweet peplum style flair and flutter sleeves made me think it would be perfect for baby neela, but a butterfly blouse made from bee fabric? would that even work?

you betcha! 

as with all oliver + s patterns this style came together exceptionally well. I especially love those little Ruffles. 

the only tricky part was getting the neck facing to lie flat. In the end I  ended doing more of a binding style a la the 2 plus 2 blouse. 

now what bottoms should I make to go with this top? maybe some puppet show shorts (now that I have the smaller size of the pattern!) in a navy lawn that's been sitting in my stash for far too long...

love,

aunt maggie

p.s. thanks to my co-worker Ava who saw me headed out to the atrium of the office with my camera and this top (best light is natural light). she tagged along and taught me all about setting my iso and shutter speed!