Jen of Jennifer Lauren Vintage has released her own pattern, The Afternoon Blouse.
Based on an original 50’s blouse, Jen calls it a retro-vival pattern, it’s a pretty quick sew, with cool details, but still has a simplicity to it. So on Thursday night (Swedish time, which I guess is Friday morning for Jen) I was about to go to bed, but just had to check Instagram one more time & I saw that Jen had posted about the pattern.
I popped over to her blog, saw the pattern was released & headed straight over to Etsy to buy it. The next morning I printed the pattern & during LL’s naps, I stuck it together, searched for fabric in my stash to make a muslin & cut it out.
I got stuck on this cream coloured linen/cotton fabric that I had left over from a custom order I made years ago. Now what I did is not something I would recommend to beginners, but as Tim Gunn would say “Make it work” & that I did. As you can see by my bad mobile pic, I cut the back correctly following the straight grain & the front is cut on the cross grain, I also have a seam on the back, it was the only way it would work!
There are few things I need to change to make the fit better, I didn’t want to waste time making a muslin (even if it is a very good idea), so we’ll call this one my wearable muslin.
I keep forgetting that having a baby has changed my body, so I need to make adjustments to the neckline, it’s gaping a bit. It could have been the fabric, the way I cut it, or I managed to stretch it while sewing/ironing, I don’t know, but for my next one I’ll remove a bit around the neck, tighten it up slightly.
The last instruction for the blouse is “Press your blouse, get dressed and you’re ready to go for a cup of tea (or a cocktail) – you deserve it!” So I had to be silly & take photos with my cup of tea ;P
