Gemma’s Paulette Blouse
It’s the last make of the year, and so let’s go out with a bang and make something glitzy!!
Hayley definitely hit the brief with this fabric – so beautiful and seemingly understated, until you move and see its full beauty! I love the subtle shimmer, so I wanted to make something floaty and ideally frilly to show off that sparkle, and decided I already had the perfect blouse pattern in my stash – the Paulette Blouse by Fibre Mood.
If you are a regular subscriber then you may recognise this pattern: I first made it back in the summer, making a sleeveless version using pink double gauze. It’s a really interesting pattern – it’s a semi fitted shirt with princess seams, a high neck collar and the most incredible frill that starts at the front, works over the shoulders and around the back, perfect for showing off a drapey fabric such as this! As I wanted to make a statement blouse I chose to do the long sleeves on this version for maximum impact, I wanted as much sparkle as possible!
To really go in on the sparkle I was so happy to find in my stash the most perfect set of buttons – silver, glitter flowers! A match made in heaven, all the glitter!
As the fabric is quite slippery you do need to be careful when cutting out and sewing – a rotary cutter really helps! I also made sure to overlock my seams to avoid fraying, and used a cloth when pressing as I wasn’t sure whether that would affect the sparkle on the fabric (it didn’t!)
Although it might seem like a daunting construction, the blouse isn’t too hard to make. Make sure you have your front panels labelled so as not to sew them in the wrong way, and be prepared for a lot of gathering for that ruffle, but other than that it is a fairly standard shirt construction. One thing to note though is Fibre Mood don’t tend to add seam allowances to their pattern (which is a personal bugbear of mine) so I brought this pattern through The Foldline who have done the hard work for us and added them to the PDF.
One slight change I did make was to not add a split to my sleeve cuff, as I personally prefer my sleeves without them. Instead I gathered the sleeve to fit the cuff which I had folded over, meaning I also didn’t need to add buttons to them either. They are a little long on me so the next time I make it I will shorten them slightly, but overall the fit is great, I made a size 20 and found the bust area in particular to have enough ease. And just look at that frill! It is the perfect fabric and pattern pairing, and just what I need for party season to sparkle the night away!