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.

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