Monday 1 April 2013

Vogue 8747 "fitted" blouse

I am still sewing daughter clothes. She needs office type clothes for the clinical part of her University course, so I thought I would try for a fitted blouse, and conveniently make something I could enter in the fitted blouse challenge at Pattern Review, run by Velosewer. I was inspired by Velosewer's parade of beautiful blouses, and thought I really should work out the Vogue fitting for my daughter, now that she is all grown up.

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Being not terribly fond of fitting adjustments, I am a big fan of the trend for multi-cup size patterns.

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Vogue 8747 has seperate pattern pieces for the centre and side front panels for size A, B, C and D (not just an A/B, then C then D, like some other patterns that pretend they have all these different fits). This makes the pattern very useful for our family, where none of us is a standard, no adjustment needed B cup, but we manage to cover all the other  cup sizes in the pattern.

This blouse is a size 8, A.

Vogue 8747

The pattern has 3+ inches of ease at the bust, and 2 inches of ease at the waist and hips, according to the printed measurements. This means that using Vogue's own description of the ease in fitted blouses, this blouse is "fitted" at the bust, and "close fitting" at the waist and hips. I find it a bit strange that a blouse that has particular fitting adjustments at the bust should be loose at the bust relative to the waist and hips. For my daughter's blouse I added a further inch of ease to the waist and hips for fitting consistency.

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Unfortunately, this was not a choice in the right direction. I should have removed an inch at the bust for fitting consistency instead!

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My only other fitting adjustment was to make a 1.5 cm square shoulder adjustment, half each at the front and back shoulder seam.
I am happy with the shoulder fit, and the neckline sits very nicely, with no gaping even when leaning forward - just as well, as it is rather low cut for a work blouse.

I had some fun with the stripe direction, cutting the side panels on the bias, and also by adding piping to either side of the shaped front band.

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The blouse is made from a very crisp shirting cotton, that does not photograph well, but it makes a smart, fresh looking work blouse and both my daughter and I are quite happy with it.

Stashbusting statistics 1.6m shirting cotton, Michael's fabrics, 2010


14 comments:

fabric epiphanies said...

I like the bias detail. It is very frustrating when clothes do not fit like indicated on the pattern especially when the recipient should be a stock size. Your daughter is lucky to have you make so many nice blouses for her. My daughter still is in tee shirt phase so I have limited opportunities to make things for her.

Steph A said...

This is a lovely blouse, the fabric and style are wonderful for your daughter. I've been looking at all the reviews on PR for this one as it's on my soon-queue. Good to know about the fit issues, I'll be sure to check it out.

Sharon said...

Another gorgeous blouse for daughter and love the addition of the piping.

Gail said...

You've reminded me that I started this blouse last year and never finished it. Your version is very nice.

Karin said...

Another lovely top! Your daughters are lucky.

Sue said...

It looks like a sweet pattern, worth persisting with. Interesting they call it fitted with 3" of ease.

Mary said...

Thanks for all the deatils on fitting with this pattern. I love this top and your daughter is lucky that Mom sews for her!!

SewRuthie said...

Oh very nice indeed.

Peg in South Carolina said...

I believe the what accounts for the extra ease at the bust is the gathers. Gathers always add more ease, but it is design ease, not fitting ease. Had you reduced ease there, you probably would have had a blouse too tight at the bust.

Peg in South Carolina said...

I believe that the extra ease at the bust was design ease, not fitting ease. Gathers always take up more room. So, if you reduce the ease there, the blouse will probably bind at the bust.

kbenco said...

I wonder though, Peg, if the pattern is properly graded. The gathers for an A cup, size 8, are quite meager. I do not believe that they take up an inch of circumferential ease in this blouse in this size. Maybe a 1/4 of an inch!

Janine said...

Lucky young lady - what is she studying ? I do find vogue tends to run large though.

The Slapdash Sewist said...

I didn't realize this line did an A cup--I'm going to have to check it out. The "Multi Cup Size!!!!"* (*with A/B cup which is exactly the same as our regular draft and won't really fit an A cup) is quite annoying.

Love this blouse! The bias side panel really is cute. The little pearl buttons are perfect.

kbenco said...

Treena, I don't know if all the Vogue multicup patterns have an actual A variation rather than the deceptive and ubiquitous A/B.I agree, that is annoying. How dare they make me do a SBA with that big fat lie on the outside of the packet!. I seem to remember being caught by that before in a Vogue, but I can't swear that it wasn't Simplicity or McCalls, who definitely have that cheating A/B thing going on in 3 different patterns I have tried from their Multicup ranges.