Completed: Dotted Swiss Colette Violet Blouse

Swiss dot or dotted swiss? I’ve heard it both ways. Which one do YOU use?

I’m going to apologize in advance for 2 things – 1. These pictures are terrible (when am I going to figure out that white photographs like doo-doo?) and, 2. This isn’t even how the shirt looks now, and no I won’t be taking more pictures (see fig. 1).

Ok, now that that’s off my chest…

Here be the Colette Violet blouse in pretty dotted swiss! Let’s talk about the good stuff first.

I barely – barely squeezed this out of 7/8 yard. The under collar is actually cut on the bias and pieced in the middle. The bias part actually makes it roll quite nicely at the seam, so bonus mistake turned into a ~design element, yeah? My dotted swiss was extremely sheer, so I hand-underlined the whole thing with equally sheer cotton batiste – you can still kind of see the seams through the fabric, no biggie. I was originally going to leave the sleeves underlined, by a practically unanimous vote, but when it came down to it… leaving the sleeves sheer just looked like I had run out of underlining fabric. They didn’t go with the rest of the blouse at all, sadly. Instead of interfacing, I used a slightly heavier bleached muslin to stabilize the collar & facings. I wanted the entire shirt to be cotton/white/breezy – perfect for a summer bike ride 🙂

The fit was… interesting. I wanted this version to be more fitted, like Joanne’s fitted Violets, so I put some giant (like 1″) vertical darts down the front. If you’re curious how I did it – ehh, I sewed the entire shirt up, minus the hem, put it on inside-out and properly buttoned, and then just pinched away until it fit the way I like. Then I basted my darts, checked the fit right-side out, and sewed them down forreal. Easy! I think fitted looks much better on me and now I don’t have to tuck it in if I don’t feel like it 🙂

I sewed this up in a size 4, but cut the back down to a 0 at the side seams to make it a little less blousey. In the future, I will probably cut this to a 2 and add a FBA because my darts were all kinds of in the wrong place! You can’t really tell in the pictures – partially because I’m standing still so it stays in place, and partially because the pictures are total shit, but trust me. I wore this thing all day yesterday and every now and then I’d look down and notice the side darts were hanging out on the tops of my lady lumps. It would appear the shoulders were too big, which would cause the shirt to ride up every time I moved. I had originally moved the darts up when making my first Violet blouse, and they look fine where they are, so I’m not sure why these were such a pain. Maybe because this version is more fitted? Ehh.

Of course, the entire shirt is serged within an inch of it’s life, so any normal person would probably either deal or wad, but I REALLY NEED A DOTTED SWISS PETER PAN COLLAR BLOUSE TO WEAR WHILE RIDING MY BICYCLE THIS SUMMER. So I ripped up all the seams last night & spent an hour pinning, fiddling, basting, tucking, and pressing until I moved the darts into a more respectable position and shortened as much of the shoulder seams as I dared.

Flat – the buttons are from the flea market! Love it when stuff like that just appears for me 😀

Inside – underlining, serged seams, oh and yes, my tag 🙂

Nevermind the dart creeping upward, here is a vertical dart for waist fitting.

Anyway, I am quite happy with my shirt now 🙂 It fits nicely & the darts are in the correct places. And isn’t it perfect for a summer bike ride? Hm I need to sew me up some plaid shorts asap 🙂

Tags: completed, killer project that almost killed me, shirt, violet