Vogue 1387, The Ditsy Blouse

 

Well, the Ditsy Blouse nearly drove me Ditsy. This blouse is finally finished. I was so excited to make it.  Lucy of Sew Essentials made one for herself and I was immediately smitten. The style was totally out of my wheelhouse but it snagged me.  It offered the following:

* All the current trends and rarely do I jump on trends but what the heck!

* Tiny ruffles

* Big, puffy statement sleeves

* Tiny,  ditsy print fabric

* The opportunity to do a little creative fabric "painting"

* Details I haven't sewn or worn in a long time and looked forward to sewing and wearing. 

I was in on this full bore. I watched Lucy's videos on her ruffle making and the blouse several times and then did my thing. She suggested a specific pattern but surely in my stash there was something similar and there was. This Vogue Rebecca Taylor blouse on the left was a near match with just a bit of of alteration. That became the understatement of the year. I changed this pattern tremendously and often it wasn't just because of design decisions. It just didn't make sense logically at times from a construction standpoint as you will see. This ended up being the most frustrating item I have made in years and it came so very close to visiting Waddertown.  As I go through my experience you will see how this pattern has some serious issues, at least in my opinion. That opinion does not seem to be shared by those on Pattern Review or the model on the envelope, so go figure.

I do intend to try the sleeveless blouse on the right, however, as it is a totally different top and unrelated at all to the other view. Let's get started. 

Description: "Top has self-lined yokes, front pleats, shaped hemline, and very narrow hem. Back longer than front, loose-fitting, front bands with snap closing, and long sleeves with pleats, placket and snaps cuffs. A, B: Wrong side shows."

Pattern: 

This is Vogue 1387.  As we go along here, notice several things.

First, watch the shape of the yoke seam in the front. Next, keep your eye on those tiny pleats. Most of all, watch that button band! Ok, also, look closely at the bottom edge of the front yoke. it is hard to see but there is a thin bias cut strip between the yoke and the pleated bodice. 

ETA several hours after posting: I just really looked closely at the yoke on the pattern envelope and the pattern pieces for the yoke and my sewn  yokes. You can see them closely in a photo below. They each have an entirely different shape.  The yoke on the model ends mid-armscye. The yoke pattern piece's bottom edge ends two inches below the armscye.  It is not sewn in backwards. I made quadruple sure of that and had tapes on each piece to direct me. You can see how it matches the paper pattern in the pic. Hmmm.......

I have no idea where the wrong side spoken of in the description  shows.  I did like the idea of the snaps and ended up using Kam snaps and was pleased with the results. 

Fabric:

For this project I needed one of the currently popular "ditsy" prints. These are small prints, often floral, but not always, that repeat all over the fabric to blend into an allover effect. My ditsy print was a bit abstract and I liked it's more contemporary colors.

The actual fabric was a 100%  poly charmeuse, a fabric I usually run from fast and hard, but in this case  it had the perfect look I wanted and so many are out there saying out these polies have improved. Have they? Not sure because I haven't worn this blouse for several hours in the summer heat but it was not too, too  bad to work with using careful techniques. It did not ravel too badly either. I starched every seam before sewing and that helped a great deal. I used my serger throughout and french seams on all vertical edges.  I can't say I had any issues that I wasn't prepared for and it worked out fine.  It was in the print and texture I wanted for my impulse project and I went with it.  One thing about poly charmeuses, they shine, A LOT. I do not care for that shine so I constructed this blouse with the wrong, matte side of the fabric being my "right" side. 

For interfacing, which is only used in a thin strip in the button bands and collar band, I used SF101, a fusible woven that worked  fine. 

To get the ruffled edge effect I loved in Lucy's blouse I needed to replicate her ruffles. She did a black rolled hem edge on the edge of her small ruffle and I wanted the same. Unlike Lucy, I wanted a simpler, to me, way of doing the ruffle edge. 

I tried various stitches, lengths and techniques, and in the end painted the folded edges of the ruffle with my black sharpie and also zig zagged them so a bit of the "zag" creeped out of the painted edge.  I did lots of samples and washed and dried them and they held of beautifully without the slightest of fading. 

Fit:

Due to the complexity of the yokes I did not do my usual Petiting of the pattern. I did not do an FBA either. I carefully flat pattern measured everything. I never take for granted the measurements given by the pattern company. I did choose to add some additional width to the bodice and hips by adding gathers at the fold on the center back. I ended up with 40 1/2 inches for my bust and hips. I measure 37 1/2 at my last measure but know I have lost a bit lately as you may tell from pics. Also, on this lazy, very rainy day I wearing a sports bra. My fit issues with this pattern were the same with a well engineered underwire. I also chose to shorten the bodice but I did that at the waistline. This is the result. 

The top snap, installed as per the pattern, twists and sinks into my mid chest and forms a cone. It is weird and awful looking. I followed the pattern exactly for snap placement.  Not happy. 

Construction:

I will go through this section by section as it is rather involved and each section had it's challenges. 

THE YOKES: 

The yoke and yoke facing are curved on the bottom edge. The front yoke is longer .  It is stitched to a rectangular bias strip that will fit between the curved bodice front and the curved front yoke. The yoke facing will then be hand stitched at that curved edge and cover everything. 

There are small pleats in the bodice that were not easy to deal with using this slippery fabric. On my first attempt I did not have a ruffle planned for the yoke but halfway in decided I  really wanted one. I  needed to pin the wiry ruffle into the seam. Above you can see the pins and basting tape used to help. I got this facing completed and realized that, #1, you could not tell if there were pleats or gathers under the ruffle so don't waste your time on the pleats if you plan to ruffle and #2,  that added bias strip detail just made no sense. It was practically invisible on the print and greatly complicated the yoke construction. I realized that the yoke FACING was longer to accommodate that bias strip so I re-did the yokes without that silly bias strip detail which served no purpose and did not even show and just used the yoke facing as my yoke front. It worked out perfectly, was the exact same finished length, and easier to install. No size of anything changed. I ditched the pleats as well and used gathers.  Upon completion and wearing I realized the pleats and gathers seemed to point toward that first snap, just thinking, here. 

THE COLLAR AND BAND:

 

I hope you can see this. The green arrow points to the intersection of the collar band and the button band. Both connect to the now solid one piece bodice front but don't touch each other.  IMO, it is very important that the bodice, right at that ruffle intersection has a small bit of fusible interfacing for reinforcement. I would also stay stitch the  seam line there as well. It is not referenced in the pattern but you  definitely need to clip into the bodice if you have sewn to the edge. I did not see any dot signaling you to stop sewing at the seam line or any direction in the pattern telling you to do so either. So reinforce into the seamline and then stop sewing when you get to the seam line when you sew the yokes to the bodice.  Then you can cleanly connect your collar and after that and separately, connect your button bands. 

THE SLEEVES: 

I did not want the sleeves in the pattern, but rather the puffy, elbow length sleeves that Lucy had on her blouse which sported elastic at the hems.  I dug through my patterns and thought I found a pretty voluminous sleeve but when I made them up they were far from being as full and pretty as Lucy's. Thank heavens I had purchased a lot of extra fabric for this project!  I measured and played and decided to just add a triangular godet to the center of the the failed sleeve and it worked beautifully. It looked intentional and gave me exactly the fullness I wanted. If you click on the above picture to enlarge you will get a better idea of how I did this, stitched and serged where you see the black lines. With all the fullness you can't even see the godet but it does look totally "design detail". 

Then I made two little poly organza sleeve heads to keep my puffy sleeves nice and puffy! 

I do hope I remembered how to do these correctly. It has been a while!  I ran an elastic cord through a 1/4 inch turned hem and that was that for the sleeves. French seams for the underarm seams. 

HEMS:  All hems on this blouse are done at the very start of construction. Sometimes I am comfortable with that method but this time I wasn't. It makes it difficult to make any length corrections when you get the end and have to place buttons or snaps in this case. No matter how perfectly things can match on the table, they may not match on yourself.  Do the hems at the very end. I don't think I am going to fall for that one again unless it's a knit. 

THE BUTTON BANDS:

Look at this picture closely, as well as the one on the pattern cover. When I purchased the pattern I remember looking at and questioning these button bands. They are a strip of fabric cut on straight of grain. YET, they are installed at the side of the neck, come in at an angle, and at the upper bust button together and go straight down the wearer's body.  Physics was not my strong  point in school but something told me the neckline really needed to be cut at an angle above the  bustline up to the shoulder seam.  I laid out and installed the snaps exactly  where the pattern directed.  Now, normally I would have petited this pattern in the upper bust but with the curving yokes I decided that I would remove a bit of length below the bust level and at the hem.  I did not do an FBA either as there was plenty of room for my Ccup upon flat pattern measuring. Watch what happens when you button all the  buttons. 

You end up with a cone forming below it with the button band. 

If you button just the top button the button band wants to follow it's grain and keep moving on a slant as shown by the green lines above. The line on the right indicates where the other button band is sitting underneath. 

You can see how the under band leans to the opposite side, not falling down straight. 

Here you can see that if I leave the top snap undone it is a bit better but not much. If I leave two undone it is a lot better and cleave city! That takes it below the bra band. 

Do I dare take the snaps out and redo them all on the diagonal?????? It is the only way those bands fall on grain and the top looks right. This may not bother the rest of humanity at all but it bugs the crap out of me. This blouse is never ending. What would you do?

The whole thing is just crazy.  Is it my body that is making it do this? No FBA. No Petiting the upper chest like I always do. Is this shirt meant for the less endowed? That's fine but don't let me work out my fantasy shirt and all of it's quirks to end up with this because I simply am a Ccup, LIKE MOST WOMEN, if that is even it. Or is it just plain poorly designed? Did someone take a shortcut when all they had to do was shape that button band with a bit of an angle and it would be perfection. ?  This is the first time I have been disappointed in a Vogue Designer pattern like this. I will wear my top with my distressed skinny jeans like Lucy did but I'll know it could have been so much better. Please tell me if it is my sewing as well. I am open. My body? My sewing? My pattern?  Thank you. 

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I am almost done my "house dress" . It is darling and coming along wonderfully.  Moving right along positively!

Happy Sewing!