I got a little behind on the updates with the sari blouse this weekend — I was alternating sewing with cleaning and e-mail, and helping the kids get laundry done and packed for their Thanksgiving with the grandparents in the Bay Area, so kind of forgot to post as I was going along. But I did take photos.
This sari came with this length of fabric for the blouse. As you can see, it has a beautiful woven gold border, so then the challenge is figuring out how best to incorporate that — I decided trying to incorporate it on the sleeves made the most sense. No idea if that’s what a professional would have done!
I had some challenges laying out my pattern — I think I wasn’t quite efficient enough, or I just made a mistake, because I ended up with one of the midriff pieces needing to be cut in the wrong direction in order to fit. Oops.
There isn’t a lot of difference between the right and wrong side of this fabric, but it’s visible if you’re paying attention. Oh well; I decided I could live with it. There is a lot of that in the next steps. 
(I did, of course, wash and iron the fabric before starting to cut.)
