McCalls 5471 - White blouse w/ ruffle cuffs

You never can have too many white blouses in your closet, right? I was missing one with long sleeves, and this design fit the bill.

This fabric is a stretch poplin, but I think it might have been a little too thick for this blouse. It tends to wrinkle easily and not stay ironed and crisp. However, I do love it and will get a lot of use out of it. Maybe no one else will notice my wrinkles...

This is a simple fitted blouse with 5 sleeve variations. Most people who've made this have used the shorter ruffle (view A), but I really loved the ruffles around the cuffs and two button loop closure.

My stars, these cuffs were difficult to make. I had a hard time getting to the small openings with my machine, and with the long cuff and ruffles and stiffer fabric, it was a challenge. I had to sew the opening by hand with really tiny stitches and forget about top-stitching. That's my only beef so far with my new machine - that it is very wide even with the tool tray removed, and I have a hard time hemming or doing detail work on long sleeves.

So on to the insides. I used a lot of bias tape for this blouse. Here you can see it around the sleeve facings:

Here's more around the armhole seam. I also used french seams for the shoulders and sides.

Bias tape along the princess seams and french seams down the sides:

You can see all 5 sleeve variations on the pattern envelope. This pattern also features custom cup sizes, which I love. I did get some cave in right under the bust, so took that in about 3/4". That made the fit better in the torso as well.

I'm not sure what's up next. I went through my winter projects and picked out the ones I really want to finish before I start spring sewing in March. I have an ambitious pile of 6 garments. Some are easy so shouldn't take as much time as the others, but then again I always seem to have issues with things I think will be easy.