I have wanted to make a proper silk blouse for a while. I have collected some really lovely silks but cutting into them has felt too scary. Finally, I gathered my courage and started this silk Diana blouse by In-house patterns.
I made a toile out of viscose much earlier this year. Remember this blouse.
I found this lovely green silk from the Beckford silks. It is medium weight crepe de chine and the colour is called the Lush Meadow. What I love about the Beckford silks is that they offer tons of colours to choose from and that the prices are affordable compared to some other silk fabrics. The silks are also hand-washable. Dry-cleaning in Finland is so expensive that I only use it for my coats and only once a year.
After cutting the green silk crepe-de-chine the project waited for a while as I gathered my courage (again!). I also spend some time pondering about different interfacing options. Finally my sewing guru Michele suggested using cotton lawn.
I tried my best to make quality work since I was working with silk. I made French seams, slipstitched all the facings neatly and even made a little tab to cover the bottom edge of the front placket. In the pictures above and below my trusted dressmaker’s dummy shows how the blouse looks from the inside. No raw edges anywhere!
I am not still completely happy with how the placket looks. I failed to measure the widths properly and I had to correct the width of the placket after I had already cut the corners. Finally, I had to add some rip-stopper to strengthen the corners and a tiny bit of the stuff shows on the right side.
I was too impatient to look at the instructions so my sleeve vents and cuffs ended up looking a bit different than in the original pattern. However, I am happy with the methods I used:
I added some golden buttons to add a bit of bling to the solid green blouse. I combined the Diana blouse with my self-drafted jacquard trousers.
The blouse fits very well. This may have now become my favourite blouse pattern!
Finally, here is a side view of the blouse:
I can also wear the Diana blouse tucked in my trousers or a skirt or wear it layered under a blazer, which adds to the usefulness of this garment.
Have you ever worked with silk? I hope that I at least have now gathered enough courage to make more silk projects. A few silk camisoles would be very useful layering pieces in my wardrobe.
I hope you liked this post. Thank you for reading and do subscribe if you want to get a notification every time I post something new! Happy sewing!
Katja
