Christmas Shirt/ French Seams/ Kwik Sew 3582 Pattern Review

I have never worked with French seams before, but I have tried to make a blouse once with a very, Very, VERY thin, unravelly fabric and it did not go well. The fabric was slick and moved around a ton and there were pieces of thread coming off on the inside seams. It sucked. It was one of my first attempts at making a button up blouse and it kind of turned me off to flowy fabrics. So when I bought this beautiful flowy star fabric, I knew I wanted to do a lot of research before cutting and sewing it.



Aaaaand I bought this pattern not long ago and thought it would be perfect for my light pink starry fabric.



I did a lot of searching for ideas on how to cut the fabric and unfortunately I did not follow some of the instructions. One of the tips was to make a duplicate pattern piece of any piece that requires you to cut on a fold since folding this slick fabric and expecting it to stay in place like a cotton is a pipe dream. The idea is to make the duplicate paper piece and cut them both side by side, essentially making one big piece lay flat instead of folding the fabric. I am a rebel, however, so I folded and cut like a fool. I should have made a duplicate piece for the bodice back (the only piece that required you to cut on a fold) but honestly it didn't come out all wonky, so I got lucky.

Anywho, I only had barely enough fabric for this blouse, so I had to do some ninja placement before I cut. I also have a cutting mat that is slightly too short for a long blouse, so I had to move this slick fabric around a lot, which was super frustrating because it was like catching a piglet covered in mud. I'm only guessing on that... I've never tried to catch a piglet. I imagine it would be hard.

Anyways, I cut each piece out and began to construct the blouse. I have wanted a bow blouse for a while now and I love the fabric so I wanted to go slowly and take my time. I also wanted to try to make the French seams. I had some help from Nancy Zieman. I wish it was the real Nancy in my home, but alas, it was just a book.



She suggested to sew the items wrong side together, trim the seam, turn to the right sides together and sew a casing for the first seam. So I did and I love it!! It looks so much nicer and I don't have to worry about little strings everywhere on the insides.



I also wanted to make sure to stabilize the seams because I didn't want it to unravel after a couple of washes. Not sure if it will actually do that or not, but I also wanted to make sure the thin fabric wouldn't be pulled down into my throat plate. I cut a bunch of strips of tear away stabilizer and sandwhiched them into every seam to give it a bit more strength. I had thought about using a wash away stabilizer instead so none would be left behind, but I kind of like that the tear away is stuck into the French seam. Almost like its always going to be there to keep the seam in check... like a nanny.



I was kind of stressing about which buttons to use because I was taking so many steps to make this a nice blouse, I couldn't just toss any buttons on it!! I dug through my buttons and found a small gold rose button... ONE small gold rose button. I searched online and found out that Hancock had them!! Unfortunately since we have moved, I am no longer 10 minutes away from a fabric store, let alone a Hancock Fabrics store. I am now at least 40 minutes away from any fabric store. I had debated about ordering them online, but I knew I was going to take a trip to see my momma, so I took a detour on the way and grabbed the buttons from Hancocks. I needed 10 buttons and already had the one and thankfully they had 3 cards with 3 buttons on each card. YAS!! I also made the cuffs on the sleeves in a white silk jacquard that I had bought long ago from Hancock. I only remember what type of fabric it was because that was the first time I had ever heard the word jacquard. I was not disappointed.



The pattern itself was pretty easy to construct. The only real problem I had was the sleeves... I put them on wrong. Well, to be fair, I've never done a sleeve with a cuff and slit before. They turned out well, but the openings are on the back of the sleeve, so I had to carefully take the sleeves off and swap them, making sure to keep with the french seams. After a quick swap, it looked much better!! The only problem I have with this top was that I was trying to finish it to wear on Christmas day. Unfortunately it did not happen that way. But in my rush, I did not make a muslin, so this top is a bit too big. I could take it in, but then I would have to undo the french seams like I had to do with the sleeves, and that wasn't fun. Plus, a nice flowy top tucked into a high waisted skirt is right up my alley!


...with the sleeves on the wrong sides...

...and with the sleeves fixed!!