After finishing the pattern test for the gored skirt in January 2018, the next pattern I made was this ruffle-collar blouse. I started it in January and finished it in February. I wanted to get it finished so I could wear it on my birthday, and I did. While I was making this I made a couple changes, but since I didn’t think I would be documenting my projects back then, I didn’t take any pictures of the process. I’m just going to talk a little bit about what I did.
Fabric
I found a lovely dark blue fabric with roses in a store one day and I knew I wanted it for something. I’m afraid I don’t really know much about fabric names, and I don’t know what this is. It’s thin, smooth, and light, while also having a crispness to it, and it gathers beautifully. I think somebody called it crepe, but I’m not entirely sure if it actually is. I love the look and feel of this fabric and I have it in several colors. My white blouse is also made from this same fabric. This blouse has a lace inset at the collar, and I found some coordinating stretch lace to match the fabric.
Fitting
I’m not sure how the fit of this pattern was intended to be. When I sewed it up it had a very loose fit. I prefer many of my blouses to have a more fitted waist, so I had to alter that considerably. I wish I had taken some pictures of how it looked before taking in the waist so I could show them for comparison. As it is, I only have the after pictures. I think I took out about 4″ at the waist.
For the inset at the collar, I wanted to have the lace but not that transparency. So I decided to back the lace with the same fabric as the blouse. The lace came in a roll and wasn’t wide enough to cut my pattern pieces from, so I layered several strips across the backing fabric piece and sewed them all together. I think the result was very nice.
For the ruffles I was originally going to finish the edges with a rolled hem. Then I suddenly decided to use shiny red bias tape instead. While I was at it, I also put it around the armscyes. The pattern had another fabric piece that was supposed to be sewn onto the bottom edge, but I decided the length was fine without it. So instead I finished that edge with bias tape as well. I also decided to topstitch the edges of the button placket and collar with red for a little bit extra.
I love everything about this blouse. It looks super fancy, especially with the red trim on everything. The trim complements the fabric nicely, matching the red roses and contrasting with the dark blue. I love the lace detail and the double ruffle collar. I should also mention that the week I finished this, I entered it into the weekly project contest on Lekala and it won second place! How many favorite blouses can one have? I’m sure I remember saying this before, but this one is a favorite for me!