On the Monday that our shops reopened my daughter and I went shopping into Leeds. We weren’t interested in queuing round the block for a shoe shop or clothes shop, we just went fabric shopping! It was lovely to be able to see and touch fabric again…and there weren’t any queues! We did get a few bargains though…

In B&M Fabrics they had a £2 a remnant table, Helen is starting a new Etsy shop selling baby clothes so she bought quite a few. In the market Fletchers had some beautiful light weight wool which I couldn’t resist. Whilst in Sam Taylors I had a flick through the pattern books, I’ve been wanting a pretty blouse pattern for a while, I’ve several shirt patterns and tops too, but nothing I would call a blouse. I spotted McCalls 7978 and thought it fitted the bill.

On the way home we called into the Abraham Moon factory shop. It’s only about a 5 minute drive from home and is well worth a visit. Abraham Moon weave beautiful woolen cloth for the upmarket designers, it’s quite trendy now, usually it’s around £40 a metre at least, in the factory shop everything is £20 a metre. However when we arrived they had a display of roll ends…at £5 a metre!!! They were all 2-3m lengths, perfect for skirts, coats, jackets etc. Well I got quite a few, it was too much of a bargain to miss! I bought £80 worth of wool, 16m, even in their mill shop that would usually have been £320!!!

Once home and back in my sewing room I started looking through my stash file for a fabric suitable for my pretty blouse. The blouse has a shaped bodice with gathers just under the bust, loop buttons to fasten and what I would call a shawl collar.

I started my stash file a couple of months ago, I got it from Patterntrace in an attempt to organise my sewing room. It’s an A5 ring binder with card pages pre-printed so you can add a swatch, how much you have and the type of fabric. I also used washi tape to mark the page edges with the quantity, so if my pattern says it needs 2.5 metres I can check my swatches within the 2-3m range easily.

I found a lovely fine cotton, it’s what I would call spotted dimitie but with very big spots! I’ve never made a blouse pattern with so many pieces to cut out, it has over twenty pieces! The lower bodice is fully lined, it’s meant to be fully interfaced too but I felt I didn’t want the stiffness, I did interface the bodice front though as it needed the strength for the button loops. With hindsight (always useful!) it might have been better to use a plain cotton for the lining asI’ve got double dots now!

It went together reasonably well, it was a bit fiddly but nothing major. By having the bottom half lined it also eliminated the problem of finishing off the seams inside. The short side seams and sleeve seams were stitched with a french seam

I decided to cover some buttons for the front, I always think a fabric covered button is less likely to come undone with a rouleau loop button hole. I did use interfacing for these, just because the cotton is so fine it wouldn’t have held for the gathering bit of making these.

I’m pretty pleased with it, I could do with a little more room around my hips so it would sit better at the back. My one issue which I didn’t notice of the pattern envelope, is that it’s quite low cut, put it this way I’m certainly going to have to watch what underwear I wear! I also feel it would sit better if the front gather were under my bust…but that would mean even more cleavage was on show!

If any one can suggest any other ‘blouse’ pattern let me know, though please note I don’t like pussy-bow blouses!