Burdastyle 07/2018 Silk Blouse

As promised in my previous post, here is the finished silk blouse that I was working on for some time. I'm glad I finally finished and wore it. The blouse design is lovely, I especially love the button loops and the sleeve. Also, this blouse is easy to wear with a skirt, culottes or pants. 

The problem, I have a love-hate relationship with silk, I love it because it's a luxury fabric and drapes beautifully but I didn't like to wear it in hot weather because it makes me sweat. So, I decided to wear silk in autumn or spring when the weather isn't so hot and humid 😊

I wore this blouse yesterday and I liked the fit, a little bit loose at the sides and the kimono sleeves were comfortable. I wore it with a me-made self-drafted skirt in beige and I think that this blouse will be nice to wear with my culottes too. 

Well, I'm thinking to make one more blouse using this pattern but I'll be using other types of fabric. I'll see...

Pattern: Burdastyle blouse 117 - 07/2018 size 38.

Fabric: floral silk crepe de chine, leftover from my previous garment.

I didn't make any adjustment to the pattern, the sizing was perfect and a little bit lose because of the gathering at the back.

The sewing progress was slow, the silk fabric was slippery and involved a lot of pinning, basting and hand sewing. For me, the most difficult part was attaching the button loops to the front-facing, the rest was okay but needed a lot of attention. 

My work started with traced the pattern and cut the fabric. Fused the fusible interfacing in the collar, under collar, left front underlap and front-facing. Also, made nine self-covered buttons. I didn't have a tool to make the buttons but glad I did them nicely, you can see the process in my previous post.

After I did the self-covered buttons, I worked with the backside of the blouse. As I don't want to waste my fabric, I made the back yoke into two pieces and sewed them together. After that, I gathered the back piece and then sewed the yoke and the back piece right side together.

I worked on the front piece after finished the back piece. The process was a little bit tricky, especially sewing the button loops and collar.

For the button loops, here is a step-by-step how I sewed them:

(1). I hand-stitched the marked area at the center front.

(2). Prepared the front-facing, the left front underlap, button loops and self-covered buttons.

(3). Pinned and basted the button loops on the center front. The end of the loops should be in the center of the front piece and the loops laid in the direction to the right side.

(4). Pinned the front-facing on top of the loops right sides together and then stitched the middle part with 0.50 cm space for the slit.

(5). With scissors, cut the middle part and clipped the end of the slit.

(6). Turned the front-facing to the inner blouse. 

After the method above, I pinned and sewed the left front underlap into the left side of the front facing.

The front piece was done and I sewed the front and back pieces of the blouse at the shoulder, right sides together. And then started to work with the collar.

Here is my process:

(1). I laid the collar pieces, one piece was fused with fusible interfacing.

(2). Pinned and sewed the collar pieces right sides together. Clipped the curve area and cut both corners.

(3). Turned the collar inside out and iron it.

(4). Placed the collar between the under collar, pinned.

(5). Stitched along the line, clipped the curve area and trimmed the excess fabric 0.50 cm.

(6). Folded and basted the seam allowance on the under collar 1.5 cm. And then ready to attach it to the neckline after this.

I decided to hand-sewing the collar to the neckline because the silk fabric was slippery. Carefully I pinned the collar to the neckline, basted and hand-sewed the collar and neckline together. It was a very relaxing process and I liked the result. 

After I attached the collar to the neckline, I worked on the sleeves.

(1). I stitched the side from the slit to the middle of the body and folded the sleeve wrong sides together, stitched it to avoid a mess.

(2). Pinned and sewed the sleeve and the armhole, right side facing the sleeve.

(3). And then, sewed the rest of the side and the sleeve together.

After I did the sleeves, I sewed the hemline with the slit. I stitched the slit first 1.5 cm seam allowance and then sewed the hemline 1.5 cm hem allowance. Iron it.

The last part was sewing the self-covered button and I'm done. 

Today's post is a little longer than usual, I hope my explanation makes sense. The silk fabric isn't easy to work with but busting the fabric before sewing makes the job easier. Also, I always use number 9 needle for my Janome sewing machine.

This blouse is my entry to #sewyourwardrobebasics August challenge with the theme "Silk" hosted by Stefanie, feel free to head over her blog to see the link party here.

The September theme is "Trousers" and I'm planning to make simple trousers with an elastic waistband. Hope I'm not going to be late again.

Happy Sewing.