Eyelet & Mesh Laurel Blouses

My 2013 sewing target was to sew an item a month and I am excited to share with you that I have ABSOLUTELY busted that target in March and April! I’ve completed a jacket but it’s still considered WIP cos I wanted to add a buckle to the belt and is still waiting for the item to arrive. In addition, I’ve sewed 4 versions of Colette Pattern’s newest sewing pattern, Laurel. Here are the blouse versions.

My wearable muslin is a dress which I will share in my dress post later. While I made very little changes to other sewing patterns from Colette such as the macaron and parfait, I had to make quite a lot of changes to the Laurel. So, I would highly recommend making a muslin if you are keen to sew the Laurel.

White eyelet Laurel blouse

My white eyelet Laurel blouse is made with a cotton stripe eyelet fabric from fabrics and trimmings a few years ago. This fabric has a sweet, understated scallop edge but was never used as I was concerned that all that white and stripes were going to make me took wider than I was. The trick I eventually figured out was to wear a matching white camisole on the inside because the stripes over the camisole ‘disappears’, creating an optical illusion which fought effectively against the horizontal stripes. I must say the Laurel pattern really helped me stash bust my “less than 3 yards” fabric stash which had not been moving for a long time.

I bought the digital version of the pattern but only printed the dress pattern to save paper. So, my blouses are essentially shorter versions of the dress. I chose a size 4 for shoulders and bust and tapered down to size 0 for the rest. Besides cutting wider armholes (these were tight!), I also lengthened the sleeves which I thought had an awkward length which didn’t flatter my big arms. The length of the blouses were also lengthen as I liked to have the option of wearing them tucked in or out.

Another advantage of using a stripe eyelet fabric. This has to be the easiest stripe matching EVER! The hem and sleeves edges were cut on the scallops. This way, no hemming was necessary so a couple of hours was all I needed to get this version done. Near instant gratification!

I wore this outfit to pick my son up from school last Friday and received compliments. Sure beat the tees hands down:) The cotton and the eyelets definitely helped cool me down in this heat!

Pink Petal Mesh Laurel blouse

This pretty hot pink petal mesh fabric was from Gorgeous Fabrics some time back. I underlined the bodice with a fuschia silky lining. The lining was so silky that it was a pain to cut! Thank goodness there were only 3 pieces! The sleeves were cut on the selvedge so I didn’t have to hem them.

Oh! There’s something else I did differently. I didn’t fancy the puffy sleeves so I made adjustments to the top of the sleeves and did without gathers. I find that more flattering for this style.

All seams on both blouses were finished with french seams since they were light weight fabrics.

I wore this blouse to the mall and church yesterday and LOVED it!  Unbeknown to me, hubby was snapping away with his phone camera behind me while I was checking shop windows for inspiration so thank you dear for these back and side back shots:)

And he caught me red handed checking out this amazing pleated dress with what looked like smocking on pleats on the border. 

It looks simple yet amazing! Can anyone tell me what kind of smocking this is? Or how I can recreate this look? I would love to sew this lovely skirt.

I hope you like my Laurel blouses:) They make really good casual wear pieces in my opinion. Have a blessed week!

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