Nellie blouse

Another successful week-end when I have managed to make a new garment from start to finish. This time I had set my eyes on the Nellie Blouse by Republique du Chiffon after seeing so many great ones online. I had never tried a Republique du Chiffon pattern before, nor had I made a "blouse" really. With the ruffle, this one has no collar to build and it is sleeveless so that another simplification.

I had a lovely Crepe de Chine in my stash that I had bought 2 meters of last year very cheaply so I decided to use it up to try this new-to-me pattern. I cut the pieces on Friday night and managed to complete the blouse between Saturday and Sunday. I even found some buttons in my box that could work for the blouse! Et voila, a new blouse ready to be worn on Monday morning! How good is that?

Plus there is the added feel good factor of using some of my ever-increasing stash. I listened to the Love to Sew podcast episode about Stash size/management recently and Helen and Caroline were mentioning how many pieces of fabric they had in their stash vs how many garments they make in a year and therefore how many months/years of stash they had already. That made me realised that in my case the numbers are from pretty, even though I have only started sewing clothes a year ago or so.... So I need to really think more carefully about what I buy and how I am going to use it... or not. That also made me start to catalog my stash in Trello (there is a great how to tutorial on Camille's blog) and although I haven't yet recorded everything, it has been quite a sobering process so far. And of course I'll need to do the same for my sewing patterns. I won't even try with my quilting fabric stash... I might break the Trello software ;-)

What about the pattern? My measurements came in between 2 sizes so I wondered whether to grade or not. In the end, I only graded the side seams, not the shoulder ones since the difference was very little. Because the blouse is floaty and not fitted, it worked fine with this little adjustment.

One thing I didn't really like is that the seam allowance is not included in the pattern pieces so you need to add it when you cut your fabric. Frankly, I much prefer when it is already included but anyway, I managed it. I guess one of the advantage of not having it included is that you can the seam allowance whichever size you want so if you have a fabric that frays a lot (like mine) and want to make it bigger or if you want to finish your seams with French seams, that's easier.

The instructions were quite easy to follow, even though there were 2 occasions where I only understood what was meant after I had done it! And there is no notches (at least none that I saw) on the pattern pieces so I was a little anxious that it would be difficult to construct it properly but in the end it came together quite easily. The buttonholes are not marked either so again that allows flexibility but can be more daunting if you are not sure!

It is my first made and actually my first garment with ruffles like this one, and I really like. So altogether, a productive week-end with a happy finish ready for summer. Now if it could be warm enough to wear my lovely top!

This is one more OPAM and I am adding it to my Q2 FAL list where I wrongly listed the Orsola dress twice (I'll blame it on the jetlag on the return from China for this one!), hopefully the committee will be kind to me :-).

Linking to Let's Bee Social and Whoop Whoop Friday.
Celine