Peter pan collar blouse in taupe stretch silk charmeuse

Can y'all stand another silk blouse?

I made this one using Mood Fabric's stone stretch silk charmeuse. Originally I picked this fabric to use for a nightgown with some other pretty brown lace. This must have been before I wised to the practice of ordering swatches because the browns didn't match. I thought it would make a great neutral blouse for my wardrobe and it really does go with a number of other garments.

This was my first time using silk charmeuse with stretch and I love the ease of movement. I used the matte side for the body of the blouse because I thought the shiny side might be too fancy for my lifestyle. The shiny side can be seen when I roll the sleeves up slightly and also on the peter pan collar. At the back I used a button and thread loop for closure.

The pattern is Butterick 5817, which I made only a few months ago in a silk crepe de chine. This time around I used the peter pan collar applique. These types of collars are really in style, but I find most of them to be too prim and buttoned up for my taste. This one I liked because it still has a relatively normal rounded neckline. I don't like to feel choked!

I deviated from the instructions by slip-stitching the collar applique to the blouse instead of top-stitching it down. It looks more like a real collar this way. When it came time to stitch the neckbinding down to the blouse on the inside, I only used the machine at the center front and on the back. The rest was slip-stitched down as well. You can see the slight puckering resulting from my hand stitches on the close-ups.

I used french seams throughout except at the center back. After using french seams at the armholes of my white and black polka dotted blouse last month, I decided to try them out again. The sleeves went in without issue, and this will be my go-to method for attaching sleeves in silk blouses from now on.

Here's the blouse with the sleeve hem and bottom hem visible. On my previous blouse from this pattern I noted that the sleeve length was perfect without the need of attaching the cuffs. I didn't even cut them out this time around.



Whew! It's been an extremely frustrating month of sewing for me. I'm so happy to end on a positive note with such a pretty new blouse. You will probably see this pattern made up again a third time. Even though the example blouse on the pattern envelope is kind of ugly IMO, I still think that big bow applique could be really cute in the right fabric.