I’m trying to be a good girl, and actually give a little word-space to all the stuff I’ve been too lax to blog up proper in the past few months. To that end, I present Part the Fifth: A BLOUSE.

After the “I actually have enough fabric” debacle that sent me into such a tailspin, it took a bit before I could get up the gumption to bring ol’ Nancy back out into the world. Luckily, I got a couple yards of this pretty, super-sheer cotton-silk on sale, and thought it would make a very pretty little Sorbetto (link). The internet is absolutely lousy with this pattern, and after working it up, I can see why. It’s super-simple, but with fine details that keep it just challenging enough. It takes very little fabric and has a nice, flattering shape. I worked mine up with French seams at the sides and flat-finished shoulder seams, and self-fabric bias binding at the neck, armholes, and bottom edge. I chose to bind the bottom rather than do a folded hem because a) I hate hemming, and b) I thought it would look more consistent and give the bottom a bit more stretch when pulling it over my head.

I’m not crazy with the fit of mine. I can see that, as with knitting, it is going to take a lot of trial and error before I get comfortable enough with my body’s many idiosyncrasies to make things that fit properly. The trouble is, it’s rather impossible to re-cut something if you make a mistake. My shoulders are much narrower than my bust measurement would have you believe, so if I cut something to fit one area, it’s going to be way off in another. While the shoulders are still a touch too wide in this blouse, the bust is tight–really tight. I can’t wear it with my typical undergarments, since I have to layer it with a cami due to its sheerness. Had I enough fabric for a do-over, I would have tried to grade between a size 10 in the shoulders and a 12 in the bust and belly (it’s an overall size 10 as shown).

So what this really means is, for the foreseeable future, I need to muslin EVERYTHING. This makes me sigh. I know it’s a necessary evil if I don’t want every thing I sew for the next year to be an unwearable waste of my time, but it also means that I have to trace out all my pattern pieces, then sew them up, then make adjustments, then learn to transfer those adjustments back to my traced pieces, and make another muslin, and so on, and so on… It’s a lot of work. And I know, when that first thing that I muslined to death comes out from under the iron ready to wear and fitting me like a glove, that it will be worth it.

But right now, it’s just so…much…work. /endwhine