Finished Project: Blank Slate - Marigold Blouse

I officially kicked off my fall sewing (not counting the pattern test coat that I made) with revisiting a pattern that I made earlier this summer and loved: Blank Slate's Marigold. Even as our weather has cooled, I still wear the shirtdress version that I made in July, although now I'm layering it with boots and a jacket. (Here's a recap of my fall sewing plans.) This time around, I opted to make a long-sleeved blouse.

Blank Slate - Marigold blouse

I won't write up a full review of this pattern, since my very positive opinion of this pattern hasn't changed since the first time that I made it. I also used the same fit alterations as last time--tracing a new copy of the bodice front and back from my previously altered pattern to make my alterations to turn the dress bodice into a blouse.

I used A Happy Stitch's post as a loose guideline for my dress-to-blouse conversion. Here's how I modified the pattern:

• Raised the sleeve cap height by 1/2" due to the cap feeling too flat in my shirtdress version. 
• Added 6" in length to the side seams.
• Added 8" in length to the CB and CF.
  
  I'm on the fence as to whether I need to add more length next time. The length looks good standing in photos, but it's a little short when I raise my arms. I'm leaning a bit towards adding 1" inch length to both the sides and CB/CF in my next go-around.
  
• Added a 2" ease pleat at the top of the CB. I had hoped that this would be enough ease for the blouse to skim over my large bum, but you can see some pooling in the rear view, so that still needs some tweaking:

Marigold blouse - rear view

•  I did NOT alter the neckline like A Happy Stitch did. I didn't feel like the dress version I made needed that alteration. However, the cotton lawn that I used for my blouse version doesn't sit open quite as nicely. I think that for next time, I will go ahead and open up the neckline a bit. I never button the top button on anything (hello uniboob), so I might as well make this alteration.
• The blouse pretty much fits straight up and down in this version. I toyed with the idea of adding some shaping, but wanted to see how it fit unaltered first. I do think I could use a little more width through the hips, and I'll probably nip in the waist a touch for next time.

Check out my new shoes!

I'm including the above shot because it shows off my new shoes that I got for my birthday. Is there a more wonderfully 90's pair of shoes than floral print Doc Martens? And no, I don't care if they clash with my floral print blouse.

 

Fabric Used

 

The fabric for this blouse is a Robert Kaufman cotton lawn that I bought on sale from Craftsy last summer. It's nice and lightweight but not sheer. As usual, my interfacing is a lightweight fusible interfacing from Fashion Sewing Supply, and the buttons were picked up at JoAnn's.

Final Thoughts

 

Because of the frustrations that I have with fitting my bust, I hadn't made a button-down blouse for myself in 4 or 5 years. Is the fit on this particular blouse perfect? No, but it doesn't gape or pull at the bust, either, which is a huge accomplishment when you're dealing with G-cups. I'll be perfectly happy to wear this and also to continue to fine-tune this particular pattern until I get all of the fitting kinks worked out.

And here's an outtake pic from my photo shoot. No idea what I was doing here--I think I was trying to twirl or something.

Outtake!