The hot Australian summer inspired me to sew some sleeveless blouses. Let's ignore the fact that Autumn started about 2 weeks ago shall we?
It was time to try out the Sorbetto blouse by Colette Patterns. This pattern is free and has been around for quite a number of years so there are lots of examples around.
I like the simplicity and the fact that it can so easily be hacked and changed into something completely different.
I first made a quick muslin to check the fit. I made a size 6.
I added a lot of length because the design is quite short, and I really don't like short tops, the result of my lifelong frustration of not finding tops that are long enough.
The bust pleats were adjusted, I made the bottom a bit more curved and I lowered the armhole as some bloggers had mentioned it being a bit tight in that area.
That turned out to be true as I lowered the armhole even more for the final blouse.
Then I thought I would try something different and I added the simplest sleeves imaginable. Or at least I thought...
I cut 2 rectangles but was not quite sure how long to make them. I started googling for examples but could not work out the official name of such a sleeve. Is there one? If you know, please share!
I tried two different lengths, but could not decide which one was better.
The sleeves were a bit wavy as well. So Instagram to the rescue!
Someone suggested I try cutting the sleeves on the bias. So I did that and the sleeves behaved a bit better. By then I had decided on the length of the sleeves.
For the finish, I was going to put bias binding along the whole armhole as you do for the sleeveless version, but that would have meant a visible stitch line parallel to the sleeve seam. I was afraid this was going to ruin it all.
So instead, I finished the sleeve edge on the inside off with my overlocker and only finished the bottom of the armhole with bias binding. That worked out perfectly.
The back is a bit lower than I am used to as you can tell from the tan line!
The blouse took me longer to make than planned due to my indecisiveness and fixing fitting issues. But now that I have the pattern done, ready for me, I'll be making more for sure!
I'm really happy with the end result.
It's such a great basic, and I could easily turn this into a dress as well.
Here are some of the variations of the Sorbetto blouse for you to try:
Make a Sorbetto without a pleat
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Fabric used: 1 metre of Rayon from See You At Six
Pattern: Sorbetto blouse by Colette Patterns.
Jenya
March 16, 2017
It turned out lovely! All the effort you put into making it fit your body and adding cute little nameless leeves definitely paid off! NOw there is an updated version I want to revisit this pattern also.