Love Sewing Magazine/Simple Sew, Spotty Lottie Blouse

I've seen some fantastic Lottie Blouses online after the pattern came free with issue 2 of Love Sewing magazine. Not wanting to miss out on the action I ordered a back issue for Christmas so that I could get cracking with my own.
After getting a new job in October I have been eager to make something I can wear to work. I'm really pleased with how my Lottie turned out!

I was looking for a chiffon type fabric, preferably black with some kind of geometric patterning on. My local fabric shops didn't seem too stocked on geometric chiffons! The closest we could get was a few bold florals but nothing was really floating my boat. In the end I settled on some black and white polkadot viscose at £3.99 p/m. Bargain!

The pattern is made up of front, back, sleeves, neck tie and a strip if bias binding for the dipped bit in the neck. The neck tie was meant to be longer but I couldn't fit a longer one on my fabric! Which is odd because the pattern states use 60" fabric and the neck tie is cut on the fold... But the pattern piece was 34" long! So clearly would not fit. As viscose is so dreadfully susceptible to fraying I opted for french seams. I was worried that this might make the blouse a little too small but looking at the measurements I was a borderline 8/10 any way so I risked it.

The hardest part of making was the neckline. The fabric was very difficult to cut straight as it is so stretchy! I attempted to sew on my binding around the lower part of the neck but it really wasn't catching the fabric properly! I decided to cut another strip, this time extending the width to 4.5cm. In hindsight this was probably a little bit too thick, I would maybe go for 4cm next time. I looks good from the front but not so much on the back. At least all 5 layers of fabric are stitched together right the way round!

I thought I might struggle a little with inserting the sleeves, but since getting a dressmakers dummy for Christmas I can see sleeves are going to be much easier! I wasn't looking for anything too poofy so I made sure they were gathered in gently.

Like many other bloggers I have seen who have made a Lottie, I attached the neck tie differently to how it suggested in the pattern. Much like the band on the Love Sewing magazine kimono I made I turned in a cm around each length then stitched the fold along one side to the right side of the neck. I then folded over the band and encased all raw edges. I did a slip stitch by hand (eek!) to catch the inside of the neck tie so no stitches were showing. I did this right the way around the neck but did topstitching along the bow part of the band, after sewing the diagonal ends right sides together then turning back out.

Then ta-dah! I turned up the hems and had my blouse! Test ran it to work today and it looked great tucked into my office skirt. Think it's my most wearable make so far!

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