Here I am again sharing a garment I sewed for myself while I was developing our spring patterns. This one is a Gelato Blouse sewn with some left-over checked wool suiting from the Hollywood Trousers, which I loved for its drape and quality.
I’ve worn this blouse so much. I love it with casual jeans, but it’s also great with black or navy trousers as well as with pencil skirts. I’ve worn it with both the Hollywood Trousers (not the matching ones, whoa…) as well as with narrow cropped trousers. The wool is lovely and didn’t need a lining at all. It hangs nicely and doesn’t wrinkle easily, which makes it great to pack and easy to care for.
As an aside, when I sewed this I forgot that I had moved the shoulder seam forward by 1/2″ (I like to do that with our patterns because I think they fit and feel better like that), and while cutting this fabric I neglected to trim the extra 1/2″ from the front shoulder. The sleeve went in OK because of the ease built into the pattern piece, but it felt so weird to wear it! I had to take it apart to fix, which just reinforced for me how crucial the armhole and sleeve are and how a small(-ish) correction like that makes a huge difference. Another great reason to sew these for myself to check the details, right?
Buttons were from the stash, too. I’m really trying to use what I have (which is plenty) these days!
I was happy for the 3/4-length sleeves this winter, but I’m looking forward to sewing it with the short sleeve option for summer, too! Definitely more of them in linen and double gauze, my favorite.
You can pick up your own copy of the Gelato Blouse + Dress pattern in either paper or digital format. And stay tuned because we’ll be holding a sew-along for this pattern soon, since the Gelato was the pattern you chose for our first sew-along.
I love this! I’ve never worked with wool suiting before and never would have thought to use it for a blouse. Will be looking at the suiting offerings more carefully next time I shop.
This is gorgeous! Could you possibly share where the fabric comes from?
Many thanks,
Tania
It’s just a wool suiting which you can find in many apparel fabric stores. I think mine was Holland and Sherry, but I don’t recall for sure. It’s not important, however; you just want to find nice wool suiting.
Many thanks, Liesl!
Wow, this blouse in a fall/winter fabric is fabulous! I think of the style as more of a spring/warmer-weather look, but it looks fantastic in wool suiting! I’d wear this often, too. Oi, another project on my list!!
Oh, I hope you do! When it was really cold outside I wore it with a cami underneath, but it’s still going strong this spring–the fabulous versatility of wool!
Beautiful and very stylish blouse! Can I just clarify, do you mean there is a forward shoulder adjustment built in to the pattern ? As this is an adjustment I always have to do , thank you, Karen
Sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned it because that always confuses everyone. I simply moved the shoulder seam forward on the pattern, it’s not a forward shoulder adjustment. I just find that clothing looks and hangs better when the shoulder seam is moved forward so I do it on most of our pattern. If you need a forward shoulder adjustment you’d still want to do that. I hope that helps.
Thank you Liesl , that does help !
“…when I sewed this…I moved the shoulder seam forward by 1/2″” Was that a forward-shoulder adjustment? If so, would you please post a tutorial on it at some point? Thanks! Were you duly impressed with the ‘camp’ Gala get-ups? Me, not so much.
Sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned it because that always confuses everyone. I simply moved the shoulder seam forward on the pattern, it’s not a forward shoulder adjustment. I just find that clothing looks and hangs better when the shoulder seam is moved forward so I do it on most of our pattern. If you need a forward shoulder adjustment you’d still want to do that. I hope that helps.
Hello
Wondering do your patterns come in metric measurements?
Susan, the patterns themselves are all in imperial measurements, but we have metric conversion charts available for each style on the website.
I love this version of the blouse! I didn’t see this when you first posted the pattern, but with this picture all I can see is a grown-up butterfly blouse. Which of course now means I’m gonna hack the butterfly blouse pattern to look like this one for my toddler 😉