I sacrificed a lie-in this morning to get up nice and early and start sewing. I call that dedication after a long week at work! I wanted to get started on an Afternoon Blouse, the new (and first) pattern by Jennifer Lauren. I love Jennifer’s style (I’ve been planning to copy these trousers since she posted about them…) & was very excited when I saw the news of the pattern release. I bought the pattern last weekend but only got as far as cutting out the fabric so was adamant that the cut-out pieces weren’t going to spend any more time lay on the living room floor.
I decided that this blouse had to be made from stash fabric since I had a big shop at Barry’s Fabric a couple of weeks ago & am planning to buy fabric during an upcoming trip to Paris over Easter & at the London meet-up in May. This fabric was actually purchased (from Barry’s of course) for an in-progress project which will be blogged soon, but I had just enough left to squeeze an Afternoon Blouse out of what I had left over. It’s a John Kaldor polyester in navy with purple dots. The fabric is actually see-through so I underlined the whole blouse using some navy lining fabric. I also used french seams throughout due to the delicacy of the fabric. I picked the decorative button with this fabric in mind from a local haberdashery in Kings Heath (if you live local pop in, it’s on York Road & the owner is lovely).
It’s a lovely pattern and it does come together nice and quick (in my case in a morning rather than an afternoon!). I had this finished in time to head out for lunch with Phil at Le Truc in Birmingham. I must admit I did rather balls up the front facing join and had to unpick and redo it, I probably should have taken a little more care as suggested in the instructions! I’m looking forward to seeing lots more Afternoon Blouses appearing online and to seeing Jennifer Lauren’s next pattern!
