Vogue 8747: a fun blouse that fits

When I bought this Liberty lawn earlier this spring at my favourite local fabric store, I had in mind a Belcarra or Scout or some other kind of casual t-shirt. But the more I wore my lawn Jasmine, the more I realized: I am not a fan of pullover woven shirts.

Nothing wrong with them. But when you tend towards the top-heavy, anything big enough to pull over is going to gape at the waist, whether bias cut or no. I do like and wear my Jasmine, but tucked in for that very reason. So whatever the lawn was going to become, it had to be fitted.

I decided on this Vogue blouse, size 14D.

I’d made up a test garment in polyester crepe, but it was one of my very few wadders: the fit was fine, but the polyester just would not press properly, and on a shirt like this, press is important. So I got it far enough to determine that yes, the waist and bust would fit and I could close it, and then moved on to the cotton version. Which of course means that I had all kinds of learning experiences left to enjoy as I progress towards a wearable shirt.

It’s the challenge I like, right? Good thing, because it challenged me.

To begin with, I have a high waist, so when I’d got the blouse sewn up together enough to try on, there was all this extra fabric on my back. As in, snug everywhere else, but baggy city on the shoulder blades. No problem! I just took the shoulder seams apart, cut a wedge shape out of the side back pieces to preserve the shape of the armysce, and took two inches off the top of the centre back, then sewed everything back up again, reshaping the curves to match what I’d cut off. In theory, this should have preserved the shape and length of the shirt portion so that the collar (which I’d already assembled) would fit; in practice, the shirt became just a smidge too long, and getting the collar to go on properly became an enormous challenge. Made doubly so by my insistence on using the serger to do this to minimize fabric in the collar.

It minimized the fabric all right–by slicing up portions of the shirt and collar so that I had to resew them, twice, making the collar stand now about half as tall as it should be. It’s a hot mess in there, but thank goodness you can’t see it. You can see some pleating at the top of the shirt front, due to all the sewing and resewing that I put the poor thing through.

And then I also moved the waist up on the pattern, but ended up making the new waist a bit too snug. (sigh) So when I first had it all made up, it was tight. Very tight. I thought I might have to wear this tucked in forever. Much to my surprise and gratitude, when I washed it to get off the markings and remove some persistent wrinkles, it loosened up. Colour me very happily surprised. Isn’t cotton supposed to shrink?

The flowers on the lawn have red centres, so I used red buttons on the front.

At the very least I now have the pattern properly marked up for next time, and it’s versatile and comfortable enough that I’m sure I’ll be making it again. It’s a simple, basic work blouse that I am currently wearing with grey dress pants, and should work under suit jackets and sweaters so I can continue to wear it as it starts to get colder. (Note, Mother Nature: in September, not now. August is still supposed to be hot. Thanks for your understanding!)