my daughter, Anastasia, needed a black pants and white shirt outfit for a recent choir performance. i came across a satin stripe white shirting at Fabric Mart (no longer available) so i bought a few yards to make her shirt and to have enough leftover to make myself an archer at some point. i used burdastyle 10/2010 #148, which has two variations. one is this ruffle front blouse, and the other is a tunic/dress with a drawstring casing. hopefully i can get to the tunic version this spring, because it’s so cute!
i made a size 134 (oh how it pains me to see her in the “pre-teen” size set!!) and the only change i made was to lengthen the top. looking at the picture from the website the shirt seems a bit cropped, so i added about 1 1/2″ to the length. i used my serger to finish the edging on the ruffle, just as you would for a rolled hem without actually rolling the hem, if that makes sense.
i haven’t had considerable luck with fusibles on collars and such (i need to splurge for the good stuff some day…) so i cut muslin as a sew-in interfacing for the collar stand and cuffs. i did use fusible on the button placket, and if i remember correctly, i used my roll of knit fusible from Sunni. that stuff is awesome—i use it all the time!
all in all, this is a great pattern! i’ll be coming back to it many times since it has all the details of a nice button up. it does lack a traditional tower placket, but that’s not a big deal. i don’t mind the continuous placket for a dressier girls blouse, and it’s easy enough to add a tower placket if i want.
while i’m discussing shirts (as i so love to do) i recently came across some great info. i’ve noticed for ages mysterious topstitching on the inner collar stand of dress shirts. i really couldn’t conceive of what it was there for until i came across this information on The Rusty Bobbin. ah-ha!!! they turn and press the neck edge of the inner stand and topstitch the SA in place before sewing it to the outer stand. LOVE this idea, and can’t wait to try it out on my next shirt! she has several posts there from taking apart a RTW dress shirt, and i highly recommend reading them. also, recently Pam from Off The Cuff did a tutorial on making a two piece tower placket. previously i never saw the merit of a two piece instead of one piece tower placket, but seeing her tutorial opened my eyes. to those of you who live in fear of the mysterious tower placket, that should demystify it for you. interesting things people!
—lisa g.
