This was garment number two in my Sewing for Sicily project, the Burdastyle Peter Pan blouse And boy, did it turn out to be a handful! I’m gonna be upfront and admit that I’m not very proficient when it comes to sewing with slippery sheer silk. I usually have an arsenal of best practices when it comes to sewing, but for this project it felt like I was floundering pretty much the whole time and it started already on the cutting table, where I struggled getting the pattern pieces nice and even. Then the struggle continued when it came to achieving a nice finishing which is pretty important to me, I want to my garments to look nice both on the outside and the inside!
On the flip side, this project taught me tons that I will take with me if I ever get brave enough to tackle another sheer silk blouse project. For instance I learnt doing the bobbin stitch dart, the value of letting silk hang before it’s hemmed and how to get the fabric to lie still (I was recommended using bed sheet fabrics, which is apparently a practice in the garment industry).
I also did a few things right. Such as drafting a separate under collar and using organza for interfacing the collar and button placket. I also lined the yoke with cotton voile which hid the collar insertion in the back.
That said, the mid back part of the collar still looks a little wonky since I didn’t use the proper methods when I cut the pattern pieces (i.e. should have used fabric instead of my cutting mats to keep the pieces in place).
As you can see the blouse has some volume in the back and I did go down one size for this pattern, as it runs quite big (I did a 36 instead of a 38).
However all said and done I still love this blouse and have already worn it a lot. Plus it goes with pretty much everything in my wardrobe, which is a nice bonus!
My review of the pattern (where I talk even more about the specifics of this pattern)
