Janet blouses, my two test versions

A while ago I saw a great Mondriaan design dress on Facebook. I loved the idea and put it on my Pinterest board for future inspiration. Two weeks later I saw a testers call from the same designer. I only knew it was going to be a blouse, there were no pictures, but the promise of a bunch of collar and sleeve options sounded great. I applied and was lucky to be among the testers. The pattern is as nice as I expected. The pattern is a flowy blouse with 5 collar options (of which one is without collar) and 5 sleeve options (of which one is without sleeves).

For the first version I made, I used silk which I bought at Suzdesigner stoffen (who seem to have closed) on sale last year. I had planned it for myself, but now I thought it would be the perfect fabric for this pattern. The woven fabric is from one of my old blouses, the blouse had some nice small pleats and I cut the yokes from this nice detail. I chose to make the converter collar and flutters sleeves. I thought it was a great combination between super sweet and cool.

The instructions of the pattern are great and because the seam allowance is 1.5cm I did my first french seams. It turned out this was easier than I expected. Silk is hard to work with and the evening I sewed it I coincidentally saw some tricks (of which the source now escapes me). I learned from that post that delicate fabrics like silk have the tendency to be pulled in your machine. The best remedy is a straight stitch plate and straight stitch feet. This way there is only a very small hole in your machine. My machine has a 9mm hole and 9mm hole in the feet so this explained why my fabric was indeed not feeding through my machine as I would have liked.

My fabric is not as drapy as I would have expected. The blouse therefore seems a bit wide under her arms. I read that silk is drapy, so I used silk without really evaluating my fabric. My fabric was that delicate and light that it more floats than hangs, does that make sense? So I made another. This time I used a very drapy knit, knit is not one of the adviced fabrics but it worked out great. This time my fabric really draped. I had chosen the fast version without collar and without sleeves. The greenish knit is a woman's knit from Lillestoff. I once bought 4 meter and I used it here and here as well. The woven part is a fat quarter from Robert Kaufman I bought in a fat quarter bundle at modes4u.com.

I ran out of my last purple flower snaps, so I made a combination betweenn flowers and round snaps. I also ran out of my favorite round bronze snaps and added one star at the top.

I love both blouses although they look very different, for the first time I really styled my daughter differently in the same shoot, so on the playground she changed shorts shoes and hair. Funny how a sewing blog can inspire someone to become a better photographer and get a better sense of style.

The blouse is releasing today and through the weekend there is a 35% discount in Popolok's Etsy store with the code "Janet" making the price less than 5 dollar. The 35% sale is store wide on all Popoloks pattern, check it out.

I love to hear what you think of my creations. Feel free to leave a comment in the language you prefer (although Google translate might have to assist me if you choose something different than English, German, Dutch or Hungarian).