Cream And Black Blouse With Piping Detail

My new cream and black blouse with piping detail might look familiar in a couple of ways. Firstly, I’ve used this fabric before….I used it for a Burda blouse, though that project was not without problems, which you can read about here. The second thing that will seem familiar is that the style is based on the Fibremood Harper. I made a Harper blouse in fine wool muslin here. And whilst that blouse is fairly comfortable to wear, I had to alter it twice to make it comfy. My original yellow blouse pulled under the arms when I lifted them, and it got me thinking…could I draft something myself that had a similar look to it but with a much better underarm fit? The answer, it seems, was yes 🙂

This was the style idea:

I got out my basic sloper block and set to work planning. The first thing I did was to trace out my back, front and sleeves and then decide where I wanted the main style lines to be.

I wanted a yoke seam at the high chest and high back level. I then wanted a seam that followed on from the yoke seams down each sleeve. The plan was also to maintain a proper underarm seam like a regular sleeve.

I divided up my pattern and made a lower front and back bodice, then I decided to make the two underarm sections of the lower sleeve as one pattern piece (see the second image below).

The next step was to join together the upper sleeves and both yokes into a single pattern piece. This proved quite challenging, but with a little help from my Winifred Aldrich drafting book, I managed it. As you can see, I closed up the shoulder darts, which in turn opened up room along the lower edge that gets included in the gathering…that’s the next step.

I traced around my shapes and then made lots of slashes into the pattern to expand it for gathering. Here’s how it looked (sorry, it’s not a very clear photo as my tracing paper is too thin, I’ve now invested in better stuff):

I should add that I made some notch markings along the seams corresponding to ones on the lower body and undersleeve pieces, before slashing.

Next, I traced off my pattern piece and also made a dart at the neckline along the shoulder. This is my final piece:

I set to work cutting and sewing next. My fabric from Patterns and Plains is quite lightweight and prone to a bit of fraying, so I used French seams throughout.

I’d be lying if I said my pattern was perfect straight away. I ended up having to put a centre front seam in the yoke as I had a job to get the long piece on my fabric after I’d cut the front and back. It may have been better to cut it cross-grain. I also had to tweak the shoulder dart position a bit. Another thing I changed was to take in a bit of width at the lower sleeve.

Oh, and here’s what the underarm looks like in the next image. You’ll see how much more range of motion there is.

Originally, I was going to put deep knit cuffs on like my Harper blouse, but I changed my mind on that too, and instead I opted for small fabric cuffs with a bit of piping and some piping around the neckline. I like how it picks up on the print. The only thin black fabric I had was a bit of bamboo jersey, so I used that. To get the look of proper piping without using piping cord, I cut off a narrow bit of jersey, pulled on it to make it roll up, then encased it in my edging piece. It adds a nice bit of heft to the piping.

I’m pleased with how this top turned out. Would I change anything? Only minor things like distributing the gathers a bit better and maybe making the undersleeve a smidge wider, whilst removing a little width from the gathered section. Overall, I feel like it’s given me a lot of confidence in my ability to create patterns from my sloper. I’ve found myself looking at so many blouse patterns and thinking…Wow, I could draft that, and I know it would fit me, and I’d save some cash too 🙂 I’m currently sewing a blouse that I designed and drafted, so do look out for that on the blog shortly.

I love how this project stretched my creativity, and I took my time over it, so I enjoyed the process while learning a lot. What have you done lately that stretched your creativity and expanded your knowledge? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading, see you soon!