Amelie Blouse

I am off to the Sewing Bee Live on the 21st September and felt the need to sew this pretty, 1930s inspired blouse by Now & Then. If I like it then I might even wear it to the show

I’ve only had the fabric and pattern a year. I bought it from Kirstie’s Handmade Fair. I’m hoping the designer will be at the Sewing Bee live this year

I am about to cut into it!

Liberty Tana Lawn, almost silk like cotton fabric, it’s lovely

I measure 41″ around my bust so I’ve decided to cut out the size 14 for my smaller shoulder and then taper into the size 16 for my bust and waist

After measuring the pattern pieces I’ve decided to cut out a size 14 altogether. Hope I don’t live to regret it (I didn’t)
Usually, with vintage patterns I need to cut out at least a size 16, but the allowances for our more rounded figures these days have already been added to the design. Even the size 14 was a generous fit

I folded the back piece in half and cut it on the fold…I’ve got this thing about cutting out a single layer, it always worries me, don’t know why.

I’ve also taken to using my rotary cutter to cut out my patterns pieces, resorting to scissors on the fiddly bits

This is going to be an ‘all things vintage’ garment … one of my favourite things is this tailor marker. I should have filled the bobbin with tacking thread but I was in a hurry so just popped in any old bobbin and the silky thread tended to fall out of the fabric so I ended up doing the tailor tacks by hand using good old tacking thread. I’m going to wind a few bobbins of the tacking thread for future use, the tailor marker is a wonderful thing that isn’t made any more

I sewed the back to the yoke as per the instructions but the fronts I added using the ‘baguette’ technique. This is a good tutorial, although the Amelie blouse has gathers. I bet they would have loved to have used this technique in their sewing years ago

One of the things I noticed on the pattern is that we’re not told to trim the seam allowance and notch the curves, it’s important to do this in order to get the collar to lay flat

one very important step if you’re doing the double pointed collar, is to snip into the seam allowance to the small dot, it simply wouldn’t work without this step 🙂

I love how everything looks so neat on the inside of the blouse

at this stage, I put the blouse away as I was going to my sewing group the next day and wanted to do some more sewing there

I was using my beautiful Vintage Singer Featherweight machine to sew this blouse. It seemed appropriate somehow

The side seams were sewn with french seams

I didn’t take any photos at sewing group, but I sewed the pretty sleeve detail of a boxed pleat which gives a soft flutter effect, you’ll see later

I used a singer zigzag attachment that I was also gifted by another generous friend on Facebook. I prefer to use my overlocker but I wanted to sew the whole blouse on my Featherweight

Using the tiny rolled hem foot produced the most perfect narrow hems on the sleeves and the bottom of the blouse

I couldn’t believe my luck when I found the most perfect vintage buttons in my stash…. I love the soft purple.

I even made the buttonholes using my Featherweight. I very lovely person in the Featherweight Facebook group sent me the buttonhole attachment, I am so lucky, it works beautifully

I love the rounded ends of the buttonholes, aligning them is a bit hit and miss as I’m still learning. I started at the bottom of the blouse and worked up towards the top. As I progressed towards the top I noticed the improvement.

As you can see, the blouse fits very well…still not convinced I look ok in it though

love the little flutter of the sleeves

The front tucks sit neatly below the bust, not quite this high as I was holding the camera out of the way but you can see what I mean

I put the blouse back on the manikin for the last few photos

Such a pretty sleeve

It is such a lovely blouse, the pieces all went together perfectly, a joy to sew

I hope I can get to feel the love for wearing this blouse

I have got some heavy aubergine coloured linen and want to make these lovely trousers with it…then of course I might need new shoes! Although, I’ll be doing a lot of walking at the Sewing Bee Live so I don’t really want to be wearing heels…maybe I’ll just wear something else!!

I’m off into the garden now,  to dig out a few more weeds from our front garden….it’s nice and sunny out there for five minutes

I really want to do more sewing though 🙂