Pattern Hack Tutorial:The Ehlen Blouse

Next month is "Indie Pattern Month" over at The Monthly Stitch. This will be my second year participating in the June month long Indie Celebration. This year I'm sponsoring TWO contests-

• One Pattern Two Ways

• Hack It 

Prizes are many, sales are huge, and we've all pitched in a pattern or two for a PDF bundle sale that is listed as " up to 40% off" but in actuality, much more than that. HUGE discounts.

 Get the details about Indie Pattern Month here:

https://themonthlystitch.wordpress.com/indie-pattern-month-2016/


 With the sponsorship I was inspired to share a tutorial on this Ehlen blouse variation. I made this outfit for the IPCA fashion show for the International Textile Expo, an industry buyers event. The point of the fashion show is to use vendor fabrics and provide buyers with ideas and inspiration. I think it turned out nice.

  As written, the pattern recommends a  medium weight fabric and is entirely lined and trimmed with lace or piping.

In my hack,  I used lining and chiffon layered together, each piece basted inside the seam allowance and treated together as one and trimmed with binding. It's very light weight, and using the methods I will show you, it's much quicker to assemble too. I enjoyed playing with the contrast of the shiny lining and the dullness of the chiffon. The bow can be wrapped and tied in the front or back depending on where you want the drama!

1.Cut one layout each of lining and chiffon. Additionally, cut about a yard of 2 1/4" wide bias from the lining fabric. Fold in half lengthwise, with wrong sides and raw edges together, press. The ties are two 6" strips the full width of the fabric (45" -60"), or as long as you want them.

2. Pin lining to the chiffon and baste the perimeter of each piece just inside the seam allowance.

3. Follow instruction booklet, sewing back to front at shoulder as pictured.










 4. Sew a stay stitch around the neckline, at 1/2". Trim neckline seam to 3/8", or 1/4" from your stitching.

 5. With bias binding to wrong side of neckline, raw edges together, sew bias to neck edge. * Because this is a long seam to sew, I did it in two steps. The first row of stitching is 1/2", over stay stitching, and I'm not trying to be too precise. I just want to get it attached. The second  row of stitching is measured from the bias FOLD LINE. I want my binding to fold over to an exact width of 3/8", so I am going to sew 3/4" from the bias fold line to get that exact width.

 6. Trim again and clip in a "v" configuration. This allows the neckline to move and bend without puckering. Press binding to the inside.

 7. Fold bias to front, matching fold to seam. Top stitch close to fold. When I say, close, I mean a SCANT distance, which is to say it's next to almost nothing. Turn your computerized machine to slow if you need to.

 8. Trim the binding to match the front raw edges then sew the center front per instruction booklet.

9. This is the sleeve at the peek-a-boo opening. Following the same procedure for both the front and back sleeve, finish this opening with binding .Sew wrong sides to wrong sides.

Trim, press, and topstitch. 

Here's a helpful tip for sewing accurate curves on those sleeve bands. I make a template cut from my pattern and then trim the seam allowances off. put on my edge and with air erasable pen, draw in my stitching line. It helps to have something to follow!

10. For the ties, along one long edge, sew a clean finish (folded at 5/8" and inside the allowance again at 1/4" and sew close to fold) along one edge, fold up creating a diagonal as shown. Sew together at 5/8". Turn right sides out and press.

11. Clean finish the opposite side. Run that top stitching from the square end, to the point end.

Hummmm...why is this one upside down?? Well, you can see the whole tie here.

12. Sew two rows of basting on the short square end, gather it up, and pin to blouse front at waist, about 3" wide when finished.

13. Sew to side seam.

14. Finish up the garment as needed per instruction booklet, omitting the lining as a finish. I hemmed my blouse with a clean finish too. It's such a tidy sewing method!

FINISHED!

Get your pattern here:
http://www.sewchicpatterns.com/ehlen.html

I hope this inspires you to join the sewing contests.

Happy Indie Pattern Month!

Make Mine Sheer!

Personally, I don't care for traditional suit jackets, but I can go for other types of creative layering! The concept behind #1106 began a year ago with the idea of a sheer "jacket" that can double as a shirt. Once it was near the end of the production process, I brought the package cover to exercise class to get the opinion of my friends. The first thing they said is "I don't work with THAT kind of fabric!" Ouch.

Just because you can see through it, don't automatically think the fabric need be "difficult to work with". The two most common sheer fabrics are Organza and Chiffon. Sheers get a bad reputation from Chiffons, which are slinky, slippery, with a soft hand and drape. Organza is the polar opposite, being firmer, easy to cut, and full of good body. In fact, organza is often used in finer apparel as an interfacing, and if used alone, as with the Phantom Jacket, needs no additional stiffening at all for a good shape in your collars and cuffs.

Being woven, both types of fabric will fray, yet they both can take very different types of seam finishes. The most common seam associated with sheers is called a "french seam" in which the seam is sewn in such a way that the cut edge is actually enclosed. There are so very many tutorials on french seams that I won't go into it here, except to say that the best, most professional french seams will be very narrow, less than 1/4" wide. On first glance, the seam will nearly be undetectable. With Chiffon, french seams are nearly the only option. However, with organza a french seam is a nice choice, but not the only one. Other seam finishes - from a simple serged edge, to a hong kong finish - could also be considered.

On the Phantom Jacket, the only seams needing a seam finish will be the back, side, and sleeve seam. Everything else is trimmed and enclosed in a facing. Myself, I used a serger on these seams, cutting them to a narrow 1/4". Now how easy is that? I hope my friends in excercise class might reconsider their opinion on sheers. Not all of them are "difficult"!

The Phantom Jacket and Pant pattern is available this week on Etsy on a "pre-order" status, to be mailed out on Monday, May 16th. Also, I'm offering a 15% discount on all Etsy orders now through May 16. Use the coupon code MOMSR4EVER at checkout:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/73756255/new-sewing-pattern-1950s-retro-jacket