A gingham blouse, V7903 by Sandra Betzina

Hi, I am Lucia, I am a fabricholic.
I still buy and buy, but a sewn wardrobe is beginning to materialize, yay! Here is to keeping that up.

I have a largish backlog of pieces I've made in the past few months, but haven't yet blogged about. I think I'm going to pretend that I planned this all along since this backlog is now quite handy while I try to establish a blogging rythm. So without further ado: A fitted blouse in blue gingham.
The pattern is Vogue 7903 by Sandra Betzina. I really liked the multiple darts to showcase the waist and the sleeve cuffs. I've been thinking that I need more blouses to go with all the skirts I've been sewing lately, so I chose this pattern for my first try.

I love the look of a crisp, fitted shirt. So, in my delirium of Carolina Herrera-dom, I picked the crispest fabric I could find. This poly taffeta in a blue gingham print comes from the home-dec department and is clearly intended for puffy valances over a kitchen window. OK, see there, at least I can admit it now... Luckily there are plenty of good news. I am very pleased with the fit, and with such a crisp fabric I needed no interfacing at all which saved some time. I also love the cuffs. On the photo they are not so visible because of my obsessive stripe matching, but in person, with shadows and motion they do stand out as a very nice feature. Seeing how it is so crisp there was no chance that I would ever tuck it in, so I shortened the length a few centimeters to what I think is a more flattering length for me. With the many darts it looks a bit as if it has a peplum, which I find quite nice.

But the best of all are the buttons. I love, love, love, those tiny rectangular buttons. They are vintage, from a flea market in Annecy (France) and I was so pleased that they matched this shirt. So, despite the poor fabric choice, I do like this blouse and wore it a couple of times last summer, with white jeans as in the photo above or with my cobalt blue skirt which it matches perfectly. One of these days I'll get around to making another version in a more suitable fabric like cotton popelin.

Powder yellow Betzina top: Vogue 2980

 

To go with the zig-zag fur jacket, I made matching pants. Both fabrics had that purple-grayish color which I like so much but which is quite difficult to match or coordinate. I looked at my color wheel and I tried various swatches until I found that this color goes well with powdery-pastel versions of blue, green and yellow.  As luck would have it, I found in the stash this beautiful knit, ribbed on the crossgrain. It goes beautifully with the zig-zag fur jacket and pants, and it has a relatively heavy hand, so it can be worn for colder spring or fall weather so that it doesn't look out of place with the fur jacket.

I had been dying to make this top by Sandra Betzina so here was the perfect opportunity (or so I thought, see lesson learned #1 below). I constructed the entire top with my new serger, and I loved it! When I went to the showroom and asked for a demonstration of their sergers the first thing I thought was: "Wow! That seam went so fast. I gotta have one!" The second thing I thought was: "Shit, how am I going to control that speed?" But actually I had no problem slowing down in the tricky places with this top.

The only bit I did on the sewing machine was the hem which I neatly made with a twin needle, following the most useful video on threading a twin needle from Sewing Machines etc. I made size C blending to D at the hip, and to E (!) at the arms. I added 2.5in to the sleeves length since I wanted full long sleeves, and I shortened the top by ~1inch at the hem.


I love my powder yellow top except for three things, which I am going to call lessons learned:

1. The fabric is a bit too think for this design. Under the arms there are places with 7 layers(!) and because of the crosswise ribs this fabric is a bit stiffer than one might expect.  I will make other versions of this top, but in much thinner fabric.
2. The instructions on the pattern said it is possible to ease a much bigger sleeve into the armscye of a smaller size. So, I thought since I need size E for my biceps I might as well cut a full E sleeve. Mistake. It is true that I could ease the 2-sizes bigger sleeve in, but that is hardly the point. I now have too much fabric at the sleeve cap and around the underarm. Next time, use the sleeve head from size C and blend into size E at the arms.
3. The back has lots of horizontal wrinkles! Do I need a swayback adjustment? Check that for next time.