Burdastyle voile blouse

So here is my finished cotton voile blouse, that I sewed as part of my winter plan. The pattern is from Burdastyle’s 2013 June issue and it is the fourth time I sew this pattern, but this pattern has so many variations (including a shirt dress) so you would never guess it’s the same pattern. This time I did the mandarin collar version and now I ask myself why I don’t sew standing collars more often, they are are stylish and are easy to sew too!

The blouse has such simple details, just bust darts and the placket is just a folded facing, no separate pattern piece. The only alteration I did is to remove ease from the sleeves since Burdastyle used to add an insane amount of ease to their set-in sleeves, even on knits! And unwanted gathers around the sleeve head is a look that screams homemade, and not in a good way! If you are curious how to remove excess ease from the sleeves I highly recommend the method Sandra Betzina uses in her book Fast fit (affiliate link).

I bought the fabric in a great little fabric shop in Helsinki last year. It was labeled Italian style cotton voile on the selvedge so in my twisted fantasy I assumed that the fabric was actually made in Italy, lol! Talk about deceptive marketing, but the fabric is great nevertheless.

As you can see the collar is a very simple, just hidden behind the placket facing  in the front, and in the back the seam is covered with a bias strip (the stitching in the back). Neat and easy.

This must be one of favorite blouses currently and I have made a bunch in the last year, since I had to retire a bunch of my old favorites.  So nice to have found a base blouse pattern that I can just re-make over and over, but it still feels unique each time.

Previous makes using this pattern

Seersucker shirt dress

Silk blouse with piping

Sateen blouse with puff sleeves

And the hem has a nice rounded front, so it looks equally nice when not tucked in.  If you haven’t checked out my tutorial How to sew a narrow hem, you should. It’s the method I used for this blouse and it makes it so easy to sew a narrow hem that is even and doesn’t twist.