A blouse for me!

I've made a couple of button down shirts for Brent and I've made some blouses for the girls but I've never made myself a proper button down shirt with collar and cuffs.  So after buying these jeans, I knew I needed a new shirt to go with them.  I wanted a fitted, short blouse with 3/4 sleeves.  So I used Simplicity 2447 and combined a few of the views to get exactly what I wanted.  

I made my shirt out of a white stretch poplin I bought at JoAnn's.  It's perfect for a blouse.  And since this is a very fitted blouse, the stretch is appreciated.  

Like I said, I wanted this to be very fitted.  And I liked this pattern because of the princess seams.  I knew I'd be able to get the perfect fit without a lot of hassle like working with darts.  I didn't even make a muslin.  I cut the size 12 which is what I usually cut in Simplicity patterns.  Then I sewed up the front and back and put those together and then basted on the front plackets.  I tried it on and figured out how much I wanted to take it.  I ended up taking it  both on the side seams and and the princess seams until I got it perfect.  

The only thing I didn't take into account was taking in the sleeve at the seam under the arm.  By taking in the side seams, I altered the size of the armscye.  So when I struggled setting the one sleeve in I realized my error but at this point I had the sleeve in.  It has some fullness at the cap where there shouldn't be.  But I didn't go back and take in the sleeve.  I got the one sleeve set in nice and the other one is not too bad.   

The other triumph of this project was that the collar is a two piece collar with a collar and the collar stand.  I've never made a collar like this and I have to say I love a two piece collar.  I love how it's sewn.  It's so easy and I was so proud of the professional finish. 

This is a close up of the cuff.  

And then I thought I'd include a really terrible picture of me that's pretty funny too.  

It's hard to be a model.