Victoria blouse by Fibre Mood

I have some Victorian-inspired blouses in my wardrobe and those are much more wearable every day than blouses that are completely historically correct. So, I started searching for Victorian-inspired blouses and bumped into the Victoria blouse pattern by Fibre Mood. I was looking for an easy and straightforward project after my corset and thus I bought the pdf pattern.

Pattern details

Victoria blouse is Victorian inspired blouse with a yoke to which the bodice is gathered. It features a stand-up collar with a ruffle, long sleeves with cuffs and a slit at the back neckline. It suits best for lightweight wovens such as cotton voile, batiste or viscose.

The Victoria blouse pattern comes in European sizes 32 to 54. That’s a pretty nice range there! According to the size chart I was between the sizes 36 and 38 but after comparing the pattern to my trusty sloper, i decided to go with the size 36. The only adjustment I made to the pattern was to change the shoulder slope – an adjustment that I always have to make.

I have to warn you that printing out this pattern as it comes, will waste a lot of paper! The way the pdf file has been constructed allows you to only print the size or sizes you need and click other sizes off. However, this doesn’t change the layout. Me printing the size 36 meant that there was a lot of empty paper between the pattern pieces. I didn’t like that so I opened the file on Affinity Designer (which is similar to Adobe Illustrator, but cheaper) and I moved the pattern pieces closer together. I then saved this as a new pdf file and printed it out on A3 paper, instead of A4 paper. Now, instead of needing to cut and paste 29 pieces of paper together, I only had 8 to deal with. Even if I only had had an A4 printer, I still would have had only 16 pages instead of 29.

Making it

I had about 1,5 metres remaining of the cotton I used for my WWI blouse. The piece was irregularly shaped but I managed to cut all the pieces I needed with careful placing.

Sewing this blouse was pretty simple. I did not really bother to read the instructions as I have made similar blouse before. The biggest difference I made was to cut the collar ruffle narrower and hem the top edge by hand. I also added some lace and decorative buttons to the yoke as I felt the blouse was lacking something.

I will probably make more of these but I have a few things I will want to do differently. First, the interfacing I used was too heavy and stiffened the collar and the cuffs too much. The interfacing wasn’t really needed and I will be leaving it out in the future. I can always add a bit spray starch if my collar and cuffs need stiffening. I also think that I could move the collar a bit closer to my neck at the sides and lift the collar up a bit. This basically means straightening the curved collar pattern piece.

However, I am happy with the blouse and it will be a good addition to my historybounding wardrobe. I will be wearing it a lot!

Thank you for reading and see you soon! You can subscribe to receive notification everytime I post by filling the form below with your email address and pressing “Subscribe!” Happy sewing!

Katja