Spark Double Gauze Belcarra Blouse

Big surprise, I made another Belcarra Blouse. It’s my sixth, for those of you counting at home. Since you already know how much I love this pattern, let’s talk about the fabric. I am a big Cotton + Steel fangirl, and wanted to try some of their double gauze as soon as I heard about it. I picked the Spark Double Gauze in Neutral, because it looked kind of gray online. It’s not at all. It’s definitely cream, and almost the exact shade of cream that graces the interior walls of our home. Not my favorite color by a long shot, but the texture of this fabric won me over so much that the color doesn’t really matter. Double gauze is so soft and comfy! It is a little shifty to sew with, but since I used a pattern I was familiar with, I could take my time to focus on marking, cutting and sewing the fabric with care. I really do love the Spark fabric and am contemplating making something out of the navy colorway. In cream, the pattern is so subtle you can hardly see it.

Of all my Belcarra Blouses so far, this is the best constructed. As usual, I used French seams throughout. Since the double gauze tended to fray pretty quickly, the French seams were perfect for keeping the inside clean and orderly. I can pop this in the wash and not worry about it falling apart, and have done so several times already. On the sleeves, I omitted the cuffs and just used 1” bias strips to finish them. Next time, I would use larger strips, since the 1” ones were a little bit fiddly in double gauze. I also successfully incorporated bra strap carriers, which turned out to be a really good idea.

The only thing I don’t like about this shirt is that it isn’t 100% opaque. You would think that since double gauze is essentially two pieces of fabric woven together that it would be opaque, but the cream colorway is slightly transparent, to the point where this shirt has to be worn with a camisole underneath. Thanks to the aforementioned bra strap carriers, all straps are neatly kept out of view. I’m looking forward to wearing this shirt on its own during the warmer months, but for now am enjoying it layered under cardigans. If you haven’t tried sewing with double gauze yet, you really should consider it.

One Week, One Pattern 2014: The Belcarra Blouse Edition

Does time move faster at the end of summer? The One Week, One Pattern event sure seemed to fly by. For the general edification of the interwebs, here are my main takeaways from the challenge:

• It was harder to take daily outfit pictures in September than it was to take pictures in May for Me-Made-May. I think this is a combination of lifestyle changes and fewer hours of daylight. A couple days, I had to resort to taking selfies in the mirror. (Oh, the horror!)
• I’d like to acquire a wider variety of pants and skirts. Since I’m still an amateur seamstress, I keep sewing shirts and dresses, and have not yet sewn any skirts or pants. One of these days, I’ll have to change that.
• The Belcarra Blouse is still my favorite pattern to date. Throughout the week, I found it was very versatile, working well with whatever it was paired with. I like some of my Belcarras more than others, but I am by no means tired of the pattern itself. I don’t have another planned yet, but I know it’s only a matter of time before inspiration strikes again.

For those who are interested, here is a summary of what I wore each day:

Saturday, September 6: Button-Up Belcarra Blouse with ready-to-wear jeans

Sunday, September 7: Simple Style Belcarra Blouse with ready-to-wear blue skirt and belt
Monday, September 8: Triangle Tokens Belcarra Blouse with ready-to-wear blazer and jeans
Tuesday, September 9: Celebration Belcarra Blouse with ready-to-wear cardigan and black pants
Wednesday, September 10: Button-Up Belcarra Blouse with ready-to-wear pencil skirt and belt
Thursday, September 11: Simple Style Belcarra Blouse with ready-to-wear cardigan, scarf and jeans
Friday, September 12: Marbles Belcarra Blouse with ready-to-wear jeans

Thanks to Handmade Jane for hosting this event!

Button-Up Belcarra Blouse

In case you haven’t noticed, lately I have been bitten pretty hard by the garment sewing bug. (Clothes are just so much quicker to sew, although I am still working on my quilts.) I am especially smitten with the Belcarra Blouse from Sewaholic, so it was a no-brainer to choose that pattern for the One Week One Pattern challenge. I wanted to make one more version before the event started, so that I would have a different shirt for each day of the work week. However, I felt like I had been spending quite a bit of money on fabric lately and didn't really want to buy more yardage for another Belcarra Blouse. Luckily, my husband had recently donated a few of his old dress shirts to the sewing cause, so I decided to make a Belcarra Blouse out of a men’s dress shirt.

The process I used was fairly simple. I cut apart the original shirt along the seams and moved around the pattern pieces until they were as I liked. For the front, I made sure to cut it out so that the pocket was still usable. The buttons are no longer operational, however, as I sewed the front shut for simplicity’s sake.

Also for simplicity’s sake, this time I omitted the sleeve cuffs, and I rather like the end result. Sewing the cuffs is my least favorite part of making up this pattern, anyways.

There’s not much more to say about this shirt. I had fun creating it, and although the fabric is a little on the stiff side, I enjoy wearing it. It's a fun reminder of my husband while we're away from each other at our respective jobs. As the weather cools, I’ll probably take a break from the Belcarra Blouse and start sewing long-sleeved shirts, but don’t hold me to it. I really do love this pattern.

Triangle Tokens Belcarra Blouse

This is my fourth Belcarra Blouse and it is by far my favorite. What’s different about this one? Two things: the type of fabric and a new-to-me technique.

The main fabric is Triangle Tokens in Voile by April Rhodes for Art Gallery. I bought 5 yards from Pink Castle Fabrics sight unseen and was a little disappointed to discover how sheer it was. (Are all voiles sheer?) I loved the fabric too much to give up on it, so I decided to try my hand at underlining. The underlining fabric is a white lawn or voile whose provenance I neglected to write down. Both fabrics were lovely to work with and even lovelier to wear. They make the garment feel more like a “real” shirt instead of an amateur one made out of stiff-by-comparison quilting cotton.

For starters, I cut out all the pattern pieces from the main fabrics, and then cut out another front, back and sleeves from the underlining fabric. I didn’t bother underlining the cuffs, since I didn’t think they needed the extra bulk. In fact, the lighter weight voile made for the easiest cuffs of all the Belcarra Blouses I’ve made so far.

Since I was so comfortable with the pattern, I just pinned the underlining pieces to the main fabric pieces and sewed the shirt together as I usually do. The French seams turned out nice and clean, just how I like them.

I’m not kidding when I said this is my favorite Belcarra Blouse. It’s light and soft, fresh and summery, perfect for hot, humid days.

One Week One Pattern 2014

Have you heard about One Week One Pattern? It’s a handmade fashion challenge in which you wear the same pattern every day for seven days. For example, you could wear your favorite handmade garment seven different ways, or make seven of the same pattern and wear one each day, or anything in between. The event was started by Tilly and the Buttons in 2012 and this year is hosted by Handmade by Jane. I signed up for the challenge with my current favorite pattern, the Sewaholic Belcarra Blouse. (I was already working on my fourth one when I learned about this event.) The challenge doesn’t start until September, but once it does, I’ll be keeping a close eye on the #owop14 hashtag on Instagram. (Speaking of Instagram, if you’d like to follow me, my handle is @snippetsofsweetness.) This is going to be fun!

My Current Belcarra Blouses

Marbles Belcarra Blouse

This is my third finished Belcarra Blouse, and oddly enough, it took the longest to complete. I made several avoidable mistakes that forced me to break out my seam ripper, which I loathe. After the last blunder, I put the shirt aside until I mustered sufficient energy to deal with it. This past weekend, I was ready to tackle it again, and finished it up in no time.

For this version, I made two changes. The most obvious is the color blocking on the sleeve. The solid was a remnant from another project that I found in my stash and just happened to coordinate with the main fabric. The fabric that I used for the body is Marbles, from Cynthia Rowley’s Paintbox line for Michael Miller. While originally intended for a different pattern, I like it better as a Belcarra Blouse. I had two yards of it, and a quarter yard of the solid, so I made this pattern out of less yardage than recommended again.

The second change was installing bra strap holders. I started with Dixie DIY’s tutorial, but added them before I sewed the neckline so that the ends of the ribbons would be concealed. They ended up a little too narrow to be of any use. However, I really like the technique, and will try it again.

At the end of the day, I’m happy with how this shirt turned out. I have one more Belcarra Blouse on my to-do list, and then I might put this pattern away for a bit. Maybe.

Simply Style Belcarra Blouse

This week, I have my second Belcarra Blouse to share with you, dear readers. Why did I make another one so quickly after the first? Aside from the fact that I really love this pattern, I also really despise tracing pattern pieces. When I find something that works for me, I like to make it more than once to get the maximum benefit of said pattern pieces.

When I made the Celebration Belcarra Blouse, I ended up with quite a bit of yardage left over, given that the pattern called for 2.25 yards of fabric for my size. Curious, I decided to see if I could squeeze a Belcarra Blouse out of less than 2 yards. I happened to have 1.5 yards of Simply Style by V and Co. in my stash, and it worked! I had to piece together the neck binding instead of using one continuous piece of fabric, but I didn’t mind. The amount of waste in garment sewing bothers me a bit. What do non-quilters do with their scraps? What am I going to do with the scraps once I graduate from quilting cottons to more traditional apparel fabric? In the meantime, I will pat myself on the back for using so little yardage on this shirt.

Another change that I made was narrowing the back piece by 1/2”, which makes it feel a little more fitted, but still loose and comfortable. I also used a smaller seam allowance on the neck binding. Both of these alterations helped narrow the neckline somewhat, but it’s still a little bit on the wide side.

All in all, I love this Belcarra Blouse even more than the first one. The fabric has a nicer feel to it, even though they are both quilting cotton, and the grey color is more my style. This pattern is so awesome, I’ve already started on a third one!

Celebration Belcarra Blouse

Isn’t funny how haphazardly we discover things? Partway through Me-Made-May, I was lamenting my lack of warm weather pants and decided to research potential sewing patterns. I had read about Sewaholic’s Thurlow Trousers, so I looked them up online. While I was poking around the website, I stumbled across a new shirt pattern, the Belcarra Blouse. All thoughts of sewing pants swiftly fled my mind. I had also been on the lookout for an easy but flattering shirt pattern with sleeves, and I was pretty sure I had found it. In my haste, I bought the PDF version and spent an hour taping together the numerous pages instead of buying the physical pattern and waiting for it to arrive via snail mail. While the page margins were rather large, the printing instructions allow you to only print what you need, which I liked.

View A called for 2.25 yards of fabric for my size. I was hard pressed to find that much of anything in my stash. Luckily I had received 3 yards of Celebrate by Hoffman Fabrics as a gift a while back. Since Sewaholic Patterns are drafted for a pear-shaped body, my measurements matched one of the sizes almost perfectly, and my hopes were high as I cut out the pattern pieces. I was not disappointed.

Several steps in the instructions called for partial seams, which I am not particularly fond of. I am, however, uncommonly fond of French seams, so I decided to see if I could made this shirt with all French seams. It got a little dicey where the cuffs meet the sleeves under the arm, but it turned out well enough in the end.

In fact, the entire shirt turned out well! The neck is a tad wide, but the pattern itself is so quick, I had no problem making a couple adjustments and whipping up another one right away. More on that later. For now, all you need to know is that the Belcarra Blouse is my new favorite pattern. Sorry, Wiksten Tank. Belcarra has sleeves.