
I know. I was supposed to post about the dress I made using this vintage Simplicity pattern. But I decided to write about this blouse first. The dress will have to wait for the next post. After I made the first blouse with this pattern, I had to make one for my youngest sister. We went shopping for fabric and found this one with red and pink copihue blossoms on a black background. She liked it, so that’s what I got to make her blouse.

I made this years ago when she was much younger. With the pattern being a size 12 and too large even for me, I knew that it would be much too large for her. So I took her measurements and did some math with percentages and ratios, then I shrank the digital pattern and printed it out. It worked; the blouse fit her perfectly.

The only problem was that the sleeves were too short. The long sleeves are supposed to have elastic at the wrists, but they weren’t long enough for that, so I had to just leave them loose. I also didn’t want to do a folded hem, which would have made the sleeves even shorter. So I decided to just cover the edge with shiny red bias tape. I also did the same thing for the neck ruffle and the bottom edge of the blouse.

I must say I really love the look of the shiny red accents on the black blouse. It would look fine without it, but sometimes it just takes a little trim to take something from fine to special. Like they say, it’s all in the details.
All in all, I think it turned out well. It looks quite nice, and my sister wore it a lot. Sadly, she has grown out of it. I guess it’s time for me to make her a new one.
[…] last posts were about the first blouse I made from a real pattern, and then the second one I made from it. Today I’m showing you the next thing I did with that same pattern. I made it […]
[…] when I was learning to sew. This was shortly after I made the black blouse with red flowers, the black blouse with copihue, and the green dress. I had originally planned to make a blue blouse with cream-colored fabric trim […]