Floral And Coral

  This shirt is based off a concept I came up with a year and a half ago, but re-drafted (the original draft went missing). This is my third version, and though the pattern still needs a great deal of work, I'm pretty happy with the results! You can see the first iteration here, and the second here. =)

  It does have some issues- I sized down too much at the waist while drafting, and the back really wants to ride up now. Additionally, I'm still not happy with the armscye of my base pattern- the front is getting close to what I want, but the back is really not great. I think, but am not sure, that I need to greatly deepen the curve in the back armscye and lower both the front and back.

  The fabric was bought a couple of months ago in the same Facebook group as my last few garments... it's a very thin, drapey rayon blend, and was rather see-through! Besides which, I only had two yards. To make up for that I cut the skirt of this blouse as a half-circle rather than a full circle. I also added some length and 3" worth of gathers to the center front.

  I under-lined the bodice with some plain white knit (which probably contributed to this being tighter than I'd intended) to prevent show-through, but left the skirt portion and sleeves un-lined to keep it light enough for summer. I had to starch all of the edges thoroughly to make it sew-able!

  I wanted to do something different to the neckline than my usual crew-neck, so I cut this one as a v-neck with a sewn-in underlay. I trimmed the neckline with some pretty lacy elastic (bought here sometime last year) and just hemmed the underlay with a twin needle- it tunneled pretty badly, but I decided to leave it.

  I had loads of trouble stitching the neckline though! My machine was skipping more stitches than it was sewing! I finally made it work by lowering the tension to 0 and using a brand new stretch needle. I also tucked some of the elastic in the waist seam, and I love how it looks.

  I initially applied the elastic around the entire neckline, but for some reason it was rolling under and chafing badly in the back, so after wearing this shirt for a day I un-picked it from the back and just did a very narrow single-fold hem there.

  As usual, the hem and sleeves are lettuce-edged. I didn't have any off-white or coral thread, but the fabric does have pure white spots in it, so I went with that and I think it worked. =) Someone wanted to join me for this photo:

  I adore the print and colors of this shirt, even though it's pretty different from what I usually wear. I'm really happy that it doesn't wash me out like I expected either! I want to make another version or two of this shirt and try to work out some of the drafting errors, but we'll see what happens with that! =)

Thanks for stopping by,

P.S. Did you notice my lovely hair-clip? It was a gift from my friend Taylor, who sells lots of pretty versions here. I love that just the single clip will hold my hair up all day- I usually use a ridiculous amount of regular pins or about 7 spiral pins and have to fiddle with it all of the time. And isn't it pretty? =)