Style Arc Sissy Blouse

Finally I have finished my Style Arc Sissy Bouse. While working on it I got the feeling that it would never be finished. I got sidetracked by the Sewing Bee contest at Pattern Review (I passed the first round, but failed in the second. Honestly, I was glad I did. It was a great experience, but I love much more to sew what I like and in the time I need). But now, the blouse is finished and I love it.

Here is how it looks untucked, but I think I will wear it tucked in:

Fabric:

The fabric is a lightweight white cotton that is semi-sheer. It has a nice striped texture which means that I did some stripe matching. Also, as the fabric is so sheer, I made sure that the two yoke pieces and the collar pieces were cut exactly the same.

Alterations:

This was my very first Style Arc pattern and I was curious how it would fit. I needed only minimal changes:

• adding 1 cm at the hips
• lowering the front darts by 1 cm
• I took in 1 cm at the center back where the back joins the yoke tapering to nothing at the sides to accomodate for my swayback

There are some wrinkles at the back armscye. I do not know if this is due to how I am standing or if this needs to be fitted (I would not know how…). Nevertheless, this blouse feels very comfortable to wear. If all Style Arc patterns fit so well, this will be my new favorite pattern company.

Construction Notes:

I did a lot of hand sewing for this blouse. First of all I made a rolled hem for the ruffles. It was the first time that I made a handrolled hem and I really looked forward to try this new technique. It is time consuming but not at all difficult and the result is lovely. I was a bit afraid that the ruffles might be to prominent, but they are not.

I tried to make the inside as clean as possible. I used french seams for the sides. The armhole is finished with a silk bias tape (I used a bias tape maker for the first time, but failed badly. I ended up pressing the tape without the tape maker). I reduced topstitiching to a minimum. Only the collar and the yoke are top stitched. The inner edges of the cuffs, collar and front tab are folded under and fell-stitched in place. I also sewed the hem by hand…I could not bring myself to sew it with the machine.

I followed the Style Arc instruction for the sleeve tab. I like the shape of it, but I am not happy at all with the method. The edges of the tab are just folded under and sewn into place, the same is done for the opposite slit side. The result is that there is a weird little gap at the top of the slit. Luckily this disappears in the folds when the sleeve is buttoned up. Next time I will look for a different method.

Collar, collar band, cuffs and front tab are interfaced with silk organza. I had some light colored, but no white silk organza in my stash. As the fabric is so sheer, it looked yellowish when I layed it over the silk organza. So I went to Port of Silk in Hamburg, a store that is specialized in silks. But they also did not have white, bleached, organza. Their lightest color was however lighter than the one I had at home, so I purchased some. If you look closely you still see that there is a yellowish touch, but if you do not know you would not notice it.

Originally I had planned to use white buttons, but again, all buttons I had looked yellowish when I layed them onto the fabric.  So I used the black ones that I found in my stash.