Most of my close friends and family know that shirts are an inseparable part of my winter and summer wardrobe. I frequently wear them over shorts, jeans, pants and skirts. They are especially handy for me when I don’t have much time to think about what to wear or I am in a hurry (and that happens a lot 🙂 ). It’s easy for me to pair them up with different clothing.
I wanted to make a light-weight summer shirt and as I was looking through Gertie’s book Gertie Sews Vintage Causal, I saw her 40s-style blouse and decide to make it. I made the sleeveless variation because it is airier without the sleeves and quite suitable for the deadly heat of summer days. By the way, I think that this is a great book to build a causal summer wardrobe if you are looking for one. There are many patterns that I would like to try out.
I started out by sewing a muslin for size 6 which came out good. I made the necessary alterations suggested by the book. I had to make one extra alteration to fit the blouse. The armholes came too tight so I lowered it by 1 cm. I finished the armholes with matching bias tape as mentioned in the book. I was a bit skeptical about hand-sewing the back neck seam because I was not sure how it will turn out. I slipstitched the collar by hand-sewing and to my surprise it came out pretty neat. I bought and sew matching buttons.
Overall, the pattern instructions were really clear and it was easy and fun to make this blouse. It is so comfortable to wear and I love it. In fact, when I was buying the fabric from Istanbul, I bought another color and I am thinking of trying the cuffed version soon.
Sew-In-Progress 