Wardrobe building blouses

The start of this month has seen quite a major shift in routine for me. Sophia has started to go to nursery part time so it's meant that I now have regular chunks of 'work time' that I can knuckle down and get things done rather than random snippets of time when she's napping or with her Daddy or sleeping in the evening.

So in an attempt to help me get into the work zone I thought it would be a good idea to have something else other than a comfy Linden to wear! And that dressing a bit smarter might help me to distinguish these chunks of time a bit better.

I've made two new blouses - one tried and tested - the Deer and Doe Melilot Blouse and the other a newbie - the Papercut Patterns Meissa Blouse.

I used the navy bye bye birdie cotton lawn for the melilot but we also have three other gorgeous colours. And for the Meissa I used the Atelier brunette viscose crepe in midnight, but again we have 3 other colours as well.

I know we were running low on the midnight at the time I published this post, but I think it's quite a dark colour for this time of year anyway. I did almost use the off white but its too similar to my RTW one so couldn't justify another light coloured blouse - especially when most of my clothes are covered in baby food by the end of the day!

The Melilot Blouse - with a few adaptions

This will actually be my third Melilot blouse! I originally made it at the beginning of the year and was so surprised by how much I liked it. So much so that I made another shortly afterwards with some Liberty lawn from my stash. For this third version I made a few changes to the pattern. The most obvious one is that I shortened it. The pattern straight out the pack does come up quite long, in fact I think too long if you want to let it hang out - great if you want to tuck it in though!

The other adaption I made was to make it more boxy by taking out some of the waist shaping and pretty much just drawing straight down from under the arm to the widest point of the pattern at the hips. In hindsight I probably wouldn't have made the change as extreme as this and if I was to do it again I'd put a little waist shaping back in, but I'm still really pleased with it! I've got some high waisted ginger jeans planned for the sewing table over the next few weeks and I think the cropped length will look really nice with them.

It's supposed to have two patch pockets over the bust but I decided to go for just one. I also made the collar stand version but you could add on the cute rounded peter pan collar that comes with the pattern too.

The Meissa Blouse - wearable toile

Ever since I bought the beautiful crepe fabric with the little swimmers on it from Til' the Sun Goes Down at the Knitting + Stitching show in London a few months ago, I've been searching for the perfect pattern for it. It's been tricky as I have a few RTW blouses that are in a similar fabric and really I'm looking for something just the same as them.

So this version of the Meissa blouse was really a wearable toile so I could weigh up the pattern for my treasured fabric. It has a really loose fit as there are no darts and the gathers at the front and back yoke give extra fullness so you really do need a floaty drapy fabric for this make.

As the length is quite generous tucking it in is a nice option too.

I made the XS but I think it might actually still be a fraction too big for me. The shoulder seam could do with coming up about 1cm and I think in my head I had hoped it would a little more fitted. That's the trouble when you have something so fixed in your head before you make it!

One thing I do really love about this pattern is the collar. There are separate pattern pieces for the upper and under collar so it means when you come to press it, the collar just seems to automatically sit perfectly with out lots of faffing and precise pressing!

The two buttons close together is a nice feature too!

Overall I think I like the melilot a bit more. The meissa has come out a bit more oversized than what I had in mind and I think the dark colour at this time of year is also putting me off but I will still wear it anyway!