Red Embroidered Blouse

My self drafted blouse inspired by a Farm Rio RTW top is finished. It’s taken many hours of prep and handstitching to complete. And I got to dive into several nerdy sewing techniques that I haven’t used for ages.

The red tencel twill from Rainbow Fabrics was a great base for the design and helped make a striking contrast to the white details. I chose a lace applique that came on a roll but could be cut to individual pieces. And found a matching thread for the decorative stitches.

I drafted the pattern using a dartless sloper block, split the front to have princess seams, and slashed / spread the sleeve to increase the width. It’s not the perfect fit as I think a little more ease in the upper chest would be more comfortable and would maybe look more blouson like the original.

Assembling the top

The bodice front features two straight princess seams into the shoulder seam where I inserted a 5cm wide ruffle trimmed with a contrast scallop stitch. The strip of fabric was about 1.3 x the length of the seam, then gathered to fit. I kept the shoulder edge free but trapped the lower edge into the hem.

I trimmed to a mm away from the edge to emphasise the shape. This is one of two scallop stitches available on my machine and is a tight satin stitch that won’t unravel unless clipped… the pressure was high not to slip while trimming. Top tip, use tissue paper under your fabric for extra stability during decorative stitches, which can tear away once sewn.

The bodice features a mix of full and partial applique motifs, scattered around in all directions and hand sewn in place from the right side. A lighter flame helped secure any loose threads after snipping the motifs off the roll.

Twill has a wonderful diagonal weave that makes it easy to grab a couple of threads for a neat tiny prick stitch no more than 1-2mm wide. (I haven’t done these stitches since my diy wedding dress.) And the lace was busy enough to move into the next stitching position for each motif from the front side under the motif; Meaning the inside of the blouse doesn’t show big threads in a maze of stitching.

As every motif was sewn on individually I was constantly cutting off my threads and starting again. This helped with stopping and starting as I rarely put down the work with a half sewn rose: it was like reading a book and saying “oh just one more chapter”.

I swear by my Merchant and Mills entomology pins for fine work like this. Although they are very sharp and pricking your fingers is common. I also have some of their lace pins, and excellent alternative.

The sleeves are delightfully wide and gathered into a narrow elastic cuff. My sleeve pleats are 1cm tall aka 2cm deep. There’s then a 2cm gap between the stitching lines which shows as a 1cm gap to highlight the next row. With three rows this totalled 10cm of extra fabric on my sleeve.

I chose to mirror the direction of the scallops on the sleeves for a pretty symmetry. And I had to lay the lace carefully to meet neatly at the sleeve side seams. Madly, I chose to embellish one sleeve while it was flat and one sleeve assembled to compare techniques. There wasn’t really a difference!

To get in and out of the top I added a bias binding faced keyhole with vintage white button.

I have another project lined up to use decorative machine stitches and I’m really excited for it. Hope it turns out even better than this top.

Making your own blouse

While I self drafted there are several patterns you could use though nothing identical. Here are my recommendations:

M8096 (last paper copy I’ve seen. PDF coming soon to sewdirect.com) would be a really good starting point. You’d need to adapt or add a new sleeve, ideally from another McCall’s design for an easy fit.

S8883 view E is another great match and just needs sleeves adding!

M8008 has beautiful sleeves with pintuck pleats and a sleeve head ruffle if you want something more subtly ruffly. I made this once before.

S9469 would be great base pattern. You can  move the keyhole to the back and add the princess seams easily by splitting the front and adding seam allowance to each side.

S9605 could be used for a more peplum silhouette like the original. Though again it needs sleeves from another pattern.

M7977 or the Liberty Rosanna top would be a fun take on this style with a smaller lace yoke for less handstitching! There’s a peplum option too.

How about this Linen ruffle tank tutorial? Or this ruffle shirt tutorial!

Pintuck pleats can be added to any existing sleeve pattern by either sacrificing some of the sleeve length or slashing and spreading to make the sleeve longer. 

If you made cute narrow pintucks using a machine foot (usually a few mm wide) you wouldn’t need to extend the sleeve at all.