IN TIME FOR NEW YEAR`S PARTY!!!!

Well, since we know now how to make heavy ruffles, I decided to make a super simple blouse, with an ornament-flower, to use our new knolodge.  This lovely blouse is made is silk chiffon, and you only need a "square"  either a 120cms or 150cms fabric.  It is all worked on the bies, and since it is in chiffon, is all self lined.......but if you were to make it in  soft cotton or other "soft" fabric, you will only need a triangle.  Follow me here, in the rainforestcouture, and you will find out.

1.  Take your simple basic blouse block and place it on top of a piece of paper.  Make an horizontal line, and  sit them there at the waist line.   Now draw them by passing a pencil all around them, and making sure you mark also the darts, and the bust point   Note:  make sure that your blocks have the  measurements of the neck and  armhole marked, there is allways usefull and save us time.

2.  Now  that we have drawn  the basic blouse block (no seam allowances, no ease)  then we make the drawing of the blouse.  We start at the  waist line.  In this case, this  is a size 40 blouse, I  marked   9 cms from the waist up, to make the cut under the bust. 

Then, I went up to the neck and  made a mark: 7 cms from center front, and  continue with a line that touches the scyce and goes down 2cms down at the side seam.

 At the back, I marked 2 cms down the side seam, and trace a line that  touched the under-bust mark.  at about 7 cmas from center back.  We want a very open back!!!!

3.  Now that the style drawings are made,  we are going to mark the space that is going to need to be gather under the bust.  In this case, I measure and marked 5 cmas on each side of the under bust dart.

Now, we need to work on the darts.  From the side  bust dart, we make  2 lines up to the marked neck, and one going down to the under bust line.  All this lines, we are going to cut them with scissors, and they are going to open up when we close the side dart

I like to measure and mark on my paper pattern, the sizes of the final lines or final seams.

4-  We close the side seam bust dart, and open only one of the lines that we have already cut going to the neck, and measure the opening from point A to B.    We take that measurement, and divided in 3 parts, and each part will  open up in each one of the 3 cuttings.   (Ej:  if  from A to B we have 9 cms, we divided into 3, and that gives us 3 cms, so, we open 3 cms in each of our cuttings.

Now that the side seam bust dart is close, we can put together the front and the back of our blouse,  and also we can cut off the under bust band (in this case it is 9cms wide)

5.  We can see now how I divided the space that opened after I close the side bust dart.

Please look at the center front, and mark  with D at the under bust cut.  From D, mark 2 cms up, and make a small  arc, that you are going to cut off with the scissors.  The 5 cms mark, you have to transfer to that arc also.

Tape toguether the  back and the front blouse, and close the back dart.  Now you can cut the different parts,  and you have the pattern nearly finish!!

6.  Now that the pattern is ready, we can transfer it to a pice of paper that is big enough to make the pattern complete, because so far, we have been working only half of the pattern, and we need to make it double, by folding the paper in the center front of the transfer drawing.  We ONLY need to draw the top part of the blouse, NOT the underbust piece.

Remember to measure and mark.  In my pattern, the cut under the bust, should end up measuring 34 cms after gathering.  The gathering has to be done  where we have the 2 marks, and it says:  8 cms.  But, the total measurement is 34cms.  (for size 40)

IN BETWEEN: Now we take our fabric, it is just a square with fabric 120cms or 150 cms wide, and we folded in a triangular shape, as in the picture, because....all of our blouse, is done on the bies, and the top part is self lined, that means that we have to cut 2 pieces identical.  But remember, this is done if the material is see-thru, like this chiffon.

7.  Let us pretend that:  that triangular piece of paper is the fabric already folded .   Now we can see how we are going to cut our blouse.  We put the pattern piece of the top, right at the top, leaving enough space to add 1.5 cms. seam allowance all around.

Then, we  add the collar that is:  the size of the complete neck on the basic block (6+12=18 in this case) and we mark in the center the 7cms of our neck size pattern.  7+7=14.  So the total neck size is the wide and  the neck is going to be 5 cms tall, so we put 6+6=12.  To all of our neck measurement, we add 1.5 cms all around.

For the underbust-waist-hip band, we are going to cut with the rest of the fabric 2 pieces that are 30cms high with all the fabric width.  Remember that you are cutting everything  in 2, because the piece is already folded.

This is just a close up of the patterns.  Now, do not worry, we are not going to waste the rest of the fabric that is next to the cutted collar, because........with that band.....we are going to make our funny-stylish- flower!!!  and it  is done with the same method as the heavy ruffle !!!!

8.  Now that we have used Hollieseamallowance gadget to cut our blouse,  we take the 2 bands of fabric that are going to be used on the waist-hip band, and we cut one of them in Half vertically, and we put one on each side of the long band, and join them  as you can see here.  Now we have a long band, and we mark the center, and the under bust measurement of the pattern.  (in this case 34cms on each side of the center, because that is where the blouse finishes.

9.  Let us pretend, that this are the pieces already cut in fabric, and this is the order in wich they are going to be sewn.  .1  Neck to blouse.  2.  Blouse to underbust band.    So very simple!!!!!

Tomorrow,  we will continue with the sewing instructions!!!!  I will wait for you right here, in the beautifull rainforest!!!!