Finished Mad May, Culottes And Cotton Blouses

Hello...
I finished my Magam Mad May, three culottes and decided to sew two cotton blouses. The weather is getting really hot and I need some easy garments for my everyday wear :)
The culottes pattern is from New Look - Misses pants 6231 size 36  that I shorten the length and modified the bottom. The cotton top pattern is from a dress pattern, BurdaStyle Chiffon dress 01/2013 #108 size 34 that I only used the bodice and modified the neckline, armhole and bottom. I will explain more about my sewing adventure in the below post, now let's take a look of the first garment - wearable culottes muslin that I wore with rtw t-shirt for MMMay'16 day 23

For the wearable culottes muslin, I used the left over woven fabric from my Simplicity New Look pants in deep green colour. Other than fabric, I need invisible zipper, fusible interfacing and same colour of thread.

The process of making this culottes started with modify the pattern based from my pants that I made in February,

• Measured the length from the waist 67 cm for the green and grey, 73 cm for the mint culottes.
• Made 3 cm waistband.
• Added the inner pants at the bottom 2.5 cm and the outer 6 cm, then drew new lines from bottom to crotch for the inner pants and bottom to hips for the outer pants.
• Added seam allowance 1.5 cm in all edges and 3 cm hem allowance.

After I had all the pattern pieces, I cut the fabric and sewing them according to the usual manner.

I started sewing the darts (for back pieces) and sewed the front and back pieces right sides together at the inner legs.

Carefully pinned and sewed the crotch from front to the back.

Then I sewed the right side of the culottes. I didn't sew the left side because I want to sew the zipper first then the rest of it.

Cut the fusible interfacing 1.5 cm wide and fused them in the wrong side of zipper area.

I also fused the fusible interfacing to the waistband pieces and sewed them together and attached to the culottes.

Then I sewed the invisible zipper and the rest of the left side. And the last step was hem the culottes with 3 cm hem allowance (hand sewed hem for the green and mint culottes and machine hem for the grey culottes)

And here is the closer look of the green culottes, front and back views.

Second culottes is the mint colour, it looks more light blue in the picture :)
The culottes length was a little bit longer, 73 cm from the waist to bottom with 3 cm hem allowance. I used 1.5 yards of medium weight rayon viscose, it draped nicely and look better with longer length.
I like it and I already wore with my new cotton top for MMMay'16 day 30

The closer look of the mint culottes, front - back - zipper and back darts

Now it is time for the third culottes, I used 1.5 yards of woven fabric in grey colour. The length is same as the green culottes but finished with machine hem 3 cm.
I love this one more than the other two and already wore it yesterday with my black top for MMMay'16 day 31

And here are more pictures of the culottes in progress and the whole look - front and back views,

Well, finally we reached the final post of the day :) I made the two blouses from the bodice of BurdaStyle Chiffon Dress 01/2013 #108 size 34 with following modification,

• Measured from the middle shoulder down to the hip, 60 cm
• Made V-neckline by reduced the shoulder at the neckline 3 cm and measured from the CF down to the chest 11 cm. After that I drew a new line of V-neck.
• Also reduced the outer shoulder 1 cm and drew a new line of armhole.
• Added 2.5 cm in both sides of front and back pieces at the bottom and drew a new line of the blouse.
• For the seam allowances, I used 1.5 cm in all edges and 2 cm hem allowance.

The picture below is my first blouse, I used 80 cm cotton fabric from my stash. I had this fabric since 2009. The final blouse is so easy and comfy to wear, I like it and already wore with my self-drafted basic skirt for MMMay'16 day 25

The sewing process was fast and easy, I did this top in one morning. The neckline and armholes finished with bias tape, pity that I don't have white colour, so I used yellow. As usual, I sewed the bias tape right sides together at the neckline, then folded to the wrong side and top stitched from the right side. I did the same for the armholes.

Here is the closer look of the first blouse, front and back views.

For the second blouse, I used 1 yard of cotton fabric. It has a lovely red small flowers with green leaves printed on it.
For the finished neckline, I used facing from the same fabric fused with fusible interfacing in the wrong side. And for the finished armholes, I used red bias tape. Here is the detail,

And the last picture of the finished second cotton blouse, front and back views.

Happy Sewing and wishing everyone a lovely day!

Love,
Hana