Self Drafted Ruffled Blouse

 

A Simple Sewing Project

    We've been swamped with home renovations that I'm completing mostly solo and I've had very little time to commit to my hobbies. I sacrificed a lot this past year to get us where we are today. I gave up a lot of my art, writing and sewing so that I could work full time on fixing up the house. After the biggest projects neared completion I was able to go back to sewing, however, I'm working with a distinct handicap as 99% of my sewing supplies are hidden away somewhere in storage. In order to move seamlessly I decided to pack pretty much everything but the machines up. I lacked the foresight to put aside all of my sewing feet/adapters and notions. Given I had few items to work with I had to plan with simplicity in mind. On my last visit to Len's Mills I fell in love with this printed linen fabric that features sunny Italian destinations and tasty dishes. I've dreamt of visiting the Amalfi Coast! I hope to one day smell the lemon trees of Italy. With such vibrant and fun illustrations I had to have this material. Originally I thought I was going to sew this fabric into a button up blouse with a unique ruffled collar. It wasn't until I was staring at the fabric, laid out across the bedroom floor, that I realized how difficult it would be to center this print for a button up blouse. There were too many words, not enough spaces between the motifs, it would be very difficult to match the pattern up and even still the placement would be awkward, there was no way I was going to keep a postcard from getting oddly cropped. Undeterred I switched gears and decided to make the simplest blouse I could possibly design from scratch.

    I selected a vintage blouse pattern that I had sewn a few years ago to serve as a basis for my bodice sloper. It was already fitted to my current dress size so I knew that it would be easy to modify. I began drafting it into a pullover top. I slashed and spread the front and back bodice to increase about four inches of ease, I then proceeded to add the additional width into the new sleeve head. I had to redraft and slash and spread the sleeve to create the fullness for the gathered elastic cuff. This is an easy draft that exists virtually everywhere on the web and while it does work alright I do prefer another approach which has more of a drape and curve to the sleeve hem (I own another pattern with that feature, a high low hem to accommodate the sleeve fullness but was unable to locate it for this project). I altered the neckline from the standard fitted collar (crew) to a rather deep set scoop neckline using my French curve ruler. I made sure to lower the back neckline only slightly as I didn't want the sleeves to slide off the shoulder. I added a 5" side box vent to allow the garment to break at the hips; this is created by sewing up to the notched measurement, cutting to the stitch line, finishing off the upper seam, then pressing the lower seam open on the reverse and folding under the excess (sort of like a rolled hem) and finally topstitching into place on the front of the garment by about 1/4" width as shown. The hems are 5/8ths of an inch, the sleeve hems are converted into elastic casings. I hate braided elastic and I swear I'll never buy that shit again, my machine chews it up for breakfast, from now on it's knitted all the way!

    It was a little tricky to determine the right amount of fullness for the ruffled neckline. There's no easy answer to this question without experimenting first. I tried 1.5x, then 2x, and finally settled on 2.5x the length. I cut a rectangle based off of the back neckline measurement times 2.5, and as wide as I felt necessary, I believe it was 7 inches including the seam allowances. I did the same for the front neckline. I seamed the collar pieces together, did a rolled hem, and then ran gathering stitches within the neck seamline. For assembly, I pinned the CF, sleeve seams, and CB into position on the REVERSE of the garment. The top as a whole is turned inside out and the ruffle is then pinned at the neckline wrong side facing up. More on this in a moment. I did my gathers on the mannequin so that I could baste them into position; no matter how well I pin and manipulate my fabric while sewing the gathers almost always twist and it drives me bonkers. I sewed the gathered ruffle on to my neckline. So why wrong side to right side? Or rather, why all wrong sides facing up? On it's own the linen is more of a medium weight fabric and with the added fullness of the ruffle I couldn't envision using a strip of bias binding or a facing to finish the neckline. It would simply be too much fabric. I once had a knit tunic dress with a cowl neckline that I studied for a time and I had discovered that the neckline seam was hidden underneath the cowl. I figured why not hide the neckline seam beneath the ruffle? So that's what I did here. I serged the neckline seam down to about 3/8ths so I didn't need to clip the neckline, it naturally curves this way. I then under stitched that seam into place around the inside of the neckline making sure not to catch the ruffle. I pressed the ruffle into position. And it worked! No neckline seam, nothing rolls unnaturally, everything turned out in the end! What a nifty trick. 

    My top is extremely comfortable and it's long enough that I can wear it with a belt and shorts, or I can tuck it into the waistline but I prefer it untucked. It has an airy beachy vibe to it and I have the most adorable blue starfish beaded earrings to match! I hope to wear my new top to the beach very soon. 🏖️🌞🌊