Terminado - The Bramble Blouse - Another Semi-Fitted Sleeveless Summer Blouse

You don't hear the term brambles used to refer to berries much these days.
I think it dates more from times when lots of berries grew naturally
in woods and fields, and folks just went out to pick their own, come summer time.
Nowadays most of us find our berries in a box or frozen bag.
The birds and squirrels score most of the ones I have in my yard.
Oh well, they can't run to the grocery store like I can! I don't really mind.
And it saves me a bit o' trouble in those prickly bramble bushes.

Hey! Do you remember the podcast I did in July, where I talked about creating my sleeveless, pink and white seersucker blouse Amaryllis blouse from my much altered tried-and-true shirt pattern (it started out life as B5586)? Well I enjoyed wearing Amaryllis so much (that gal has been a real go-to summer wardrobe choice) that I made another blouse from my same much altered pattern.

And doesn't it look pretty durn cute with my sage'y green shorts from two summers ago? I think so! I've also been wearing it with my new Midnight Sky black denim skirt, but I don't have a really cute photo of that combination yet :-)

Oh yeah, I altered the pattern a little more!  I just can't get enough of altering now - no pattern is safe from my fideling fingers.   Blame my wonderful dress form buddy Conchita for that! Because this crisp bramble printed cotton doesn't hang off a woman's body in the same way as the loosey-goosey seersucker I used for Amaryllis, I made a few changes to my Bramble Blouse as I was creating her. . . 

i) I took the long front darts I'd created from the hem, up the princess line, to the bust apex, and extended them up above the bust apex. 
ii) I also took those darts in more - so my Bramble Blouse is all together narrower than Amaryllis.  
iii) In addition I added long darts along the back princess seam. 

My dress form Conchita was really useful
when it came to making the
Bramble Blouse more fitted

These alterations resulted in a semi-fitted blouse that's just a little more fitted. 

OK, I admit it. I used good old
safety pins to try out that extended dart.
Because just after I tried this out on
Conchita, I slipped it on
me and checked out that new dart in the bathroom mirror.

Amaryllis is somewhat fitted,
but less so than my Bramble Blouse
That works because she's made out of a non-crisp seersucker

~ ~ ~

Web Resources

Audio/Podcast Summer of the Blouse - Amaryllis http://meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2014/07/ench-by-sew-022-summer-of-blouse.html

Blog Posting about Amaryllis http://meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2014/07/amaryllis-my-new-semi-fitted-blouse.html

Wardrobe Builder - The Midnight Sky Black Denim Skirt http://meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2014/08/terminado-wardrobe-builder-midnight-sky.html

Creating Conchita, my Dress Form Friend  http://enchantedbysewing.blogspot.com/2013/09/ench-by-sew-12-dress-forms.html

Kit 1: Progresso en Curso - Shirt Sewing (B5586)

Pleased to have finished one of my kit projects, the Canada basic tee shirt, I'm now mitad

The midway bits on a shirt
are what really take the time for me

del camino/midway down the road - with sewing kit 1 (*). This shirt project is a good bit more work than the tee. It's B5586,  the same pattern as my No. 1 Lady's Detective Agency shirt. This time I'm sewin' her up in a 1/8 inch lilac Robert Kaufaman gingham check, using a half meter of Liberty of London Tana Lawn fabric for the accents. The Liberty material is a dark purple and sage green. I sure wish I knew the name of that particular print. I talked a about my visit to buy fabric at Liberty of London, along with other activities beloved of a traveling sewist's heart,  in my June Podcast, Laurel Love's London.

Note added on September 3. I recently found the name of this Liberty of London tana lawn print! It's called "Mauverina". Here's a link to another version of it at fabric.com. The colors combination is different, and very pretty too. https://www.fabric.com/buy/0295796/liberty-of-london-tana-lawn-mauverina-pink-light-green-light-turquoise

I tend to forget how much work the midway bits take , when sewing this kind of project. I got the body going pretty quickly - french seamed the shoulder and side seams  y Hola! I've just about got a shirt, no?

Pero espera, there's all the middle of the road bits and pieces to do next. I'm not even close to buttoning this chiquita up yet. 

Primero

I interfaced the
placket-faced-monster with
silk organza

First I sewed the bottom of the sleeve tuck, and then proceeded to do battle with the placket faced monster that opens up the fitted part of the sleeve edges. I'm still not-one - with sleeve plackets. I remember how to sew the strip on (it's so odd the way one piece curves and the other doesn't, but I've accepted that now) It's that part where you sew down the little triangle just above the head of the opening that just doesn't seem to lie right. I think maybe I'm cutting my placket strips to wide. For now, I'm going to fold that bit another way, to keep the outside nice and the inside attractively finished.

This is a good time to tell you that my experiment with my new version of this shirt is to use silk organza as the interfacing element. Actually in some parts I'm using it more like interlining (sewing it all the way on or around a particular piece) and in others like interfacing. In the placket opening photo, you can just see the silk organza as interfacing.

BTW a very pleasant woman at Fashion Sewing TV does a good job of talking a sewist through the process of a sleeve placket of this type at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWBTTNtoSas. 

I finished the sleeve placket (except for final hand stitching) and moved on to...

Próximo
Next I began on all the bits and pieces associated with the neck and front opening. 
There's the front facing - the long curved Liberty print strips where the buttons and buttonholes will go. They make turning back the front of the shirt a real occasion. (The original pattern doesn't use them in this view.) Because I only had a half of a meter of fabric for all the accent bits, and the print is directional, I had to piece those (you'll never see that seam part way down the inside front of the shirt). Then I interlined them with silk organza. After the front facing, I prepped the back facing - more silk organza- basted the seams, checked fit on me, then sewed them all together with a regular stitch length. I basted more than usual because the silk organza interlining added another level of dimension that had possibilities when it came to something just not hanging in there right. A tiny bit of work with Auntie Seama Rippa, but not bad at all.

Oh and pressing. There was lots and lots of pressing after every bit of sewing. And yes, it helped that gingham lie down and play nicely with the Liberty fabric. Though they're both all cotton, the gingham has a slightly hefty, rough, thready hand. The Liberty Tana Lawn, on the other hand, is nearly as smooth and thin as a silky silk. Ahora, you'd almost think the two very differently textured materials are sisters.

The back facing has
silk organza interlining too

Entonces

Next, I began working on the collar bits and also returned to the cuffs. I re-muslined the collar, as I thought the way it had turned out in the No. 1 Lady's version and the Pink Mille-Fleur version of this shirt was just too long. So I... retraced the pattern - both collar band and collar that I had last made (and had to spend some time puzzling over why  I'd altered them to be so much wider - oh right I do a wide decorative front the original pattern doesn't call for), then I had to compare the new collar arrangement with existing shirts, fold length back, compare, with other shirts I like, pin pattern to the new shirt, study in mirror, cut a one layer muslin from the two pieces, baste that on, study in mirror, ok that, return and - oh wait, note this is a directional print, mark the pattern to ensure that collar will be right way up (oh and the collar band goes one way but the collar piece folds down so the print goes the other way! So double check that against an actual shirt! ) cut out the actual collar pieces (one side in gingham, the other in the LIberty) . Whew!

y tambien 

After interlining  silk organza to my newly cut collar and collar band, I also interlined my cuff pieces, which oh by the way, I was just cutting out of Liberty and gingham - taking into account a seam allowance where it doesn't normally occur, and cutting the Liberty part longer (so when I turn my cuff back, you don't see the underside of the fabric - this has been happening on the pink Mille-fleur shirt) and also taking into account the directionality of the Liberty print.

Dulces sueños

Time for bed. Let's see what kind of sweet dreams my enchantment with sewing will bring me.

* I blogged about 5 kits I cut out recently to have several garments in the ready-to-pickup-and-sew stage . Here's that posting http://www.meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2013/07/squeezing-in-sewing-personal-project.html