A Summer Blouse

From lois

I had read on a blog that this pattern is one of the few patterns of this style of blouse that you can use cotton or silk fabrics instead of knit fabrics, so I thought I'd try it. Of course I didn't read the Pattern Reviews on it before I started it!

From lois

This pattern is huge! Luckily I did a muslin, but unfortunately didn't get a picture of the muslin that was huge.

Here is a photo, though, in which you can see the permanent marker lines showing how much I folded the front and back pattern pieces over to make it smaller. I used the size 14, which corresponded to bust and waist. Sorry, I tried to make these bigger, but couldn't get it to work for some reason, so it's hard to see. You can click on the photos though.

From lois

From lois

So I ended up taking out several inches. You can see by the pattern envelope that the neck facing doesn't lay nicely and that there are wrinkles extending to the armholes. I decided to extend the neckline up about 2 1/2 inches. Luckily, it turned out great! I made my own 1/2 inch self-facing and put that on.

All in all, I really like how the blouse turned out and would make it again with these corrections. I also did a rolled hem on the serger for the sleeve hems.

From lois