Sampling a blouse

The education coordinator at a local big box craft store has always liked the sewing I’ve done on the blouses she’s seen me wear. When I gave notice that I was scaling back on the classes I would be teaching there, I agreed to make one more sample for her, a blouse. It was a pattern that I could see myself wearing, and would easily come out of my stash. She said she would contact me when she received the pattern.

I had originally thought I would make the blouse in a red fabric I had in my stash. However, since I hadn’t heard from her in so long, I mentally promised the fabric to another project.

Once I received the pattern I had a decision to make. Would I change the red fabric back to the original project, or would I keep it for the new project? Keeping the red fabric for the new project won out.

So the blouse sample needed fabric. And it needed to be made for view B of the pattern. Hmmmm. I browsed through my stash, looking at fabrics. I needed enough fabric for both the main blouse fabric and the contrasting trim.

I found some blue fabric I liked from a recent trip to a fabric store. That’s nothing new, my favorite color is blue. However, this fabric had a western type print on it that I liked. Now, what could I put with it for a trim? Blue would be difficult, since matching blue fabrics can be hit or miss. I realized that there was a recurring black stripe in the main fabric. I had solid black fabric that I could use for the contrasting trim.

Since the pattern belonged to the store I made a point of preparing the pattern pieces so they could be used by someone else in the future. (You never know.) I lined up the main pattern pieces so that the stripes would match up at the side seams. The sleeves were a different matter. With a dart on the front of the blouse, the stripes no longer matched front to back in the upper part of the blouse.

When I make blouses for myself I rarely press during construction. During the sewing of this blouse I took pains to stop and iron most seams. Buttons and all later, I had a blouse.

When I took the blouse into the store the education coordinator said that she might get a mannequin to display the blouse since she liked it so well.