Stella blouse

It’s my niece’s birthday coming up and with all the hot weather I thought it would be a good time to make her a few summer outfits. So I made this Stella blouse which is from Ikatee patterns. I’ve had lots of success with Ikatee patterns so I had high hopes, and I was not disappointed!

1. The fabric

I bought a lovely orangy-red double gauze to make this from which I bought from Higgs and Higgs. I wanted to try sewing with a new fabric and double gauze is supposed to be great for children’s wear, particularly for hot summer days. It’s made of two very thin layers of cotton which have been sewn together in a criss-cross pattern which creates a lovely texture and feels thick to touch. For this pattern I also needed some bias binding, so I decided to use a brown cotton from my stash which I thought went quite well.

2. The pattern

This pattern from Ikatee comes in sizes age 3 to 12, more information on their website here: https://ikatee.com/collections/girl-3-12-years/products/stella-blouse-dress-girl-3-12-sewing-pattern. It can be made as either a blouse or a dress, and it consists of a yoke with a gathered skirt/peplum, and there are ruffles around each arm hole. It can be done with or without sleeves and I opted to do without sleeves so it works for a summers day. It’s a really pretty blouse and I have seen my niece wearing something similar before so I hope it’s a style she likes.

3. The challenges

My main issue with this pattern was the seam allowance. It’s only a quarter of an inch, and the pattern assumes that you have an overlocker. I don’t have an overlocker and I wanted to make it using french seams. A sensible person (not me) would have looked through the pattern and figured out what parts of the pattern would need to be enlarged to increase the seam allowance. I am not a sensible person, and I decided to make french seams out of the tiny seam allowance by first sewing a seam somewhere between 1/8th inch and 1/16th of an inch, and then sewing the second seam just under 1/4 inch. I do not recommend this! It means that first seam is so tiny it’s very likely to come undone. I’m also sure I have gone over the seam allowance and made a blouse which is smaller than it should be. I’m just hoping that my niece hasn’t grown too much recently!

I also found that it took me a very long time to make (~1 day), but as mentioned, I made it harder than it needed to be. Because I was doing french seams they had to be sewn twice, but also because I was trying to make them as small as I could I ended up having to re-do quite a few seams. Also I used a tiny stitch size in an effort to increase the strength, but this meant when I got to the end of the project I almost ran out of thread! It was a close call but I made it.

The ruffles and gathers were easy to do and really satisfying, which was great as I was doing them for the first time. I found the instructions were excellent, very clear, particularly for doing the binding. A really great pattern.

4. The final results

I’m very happy with the result, and think this looks great – the Ikatee pattern is a winner again! I am a little worried it’ll be too small, but if it is then that’s my fault for not increasing the seam allowance. I was worried that the french seams in the double gauze would be too bulky but they work fine because the fabric is so soft. I think the ruffles are really cute and the bias binding around the neck and armholes gives it a nice structure which I think will make it comfortable to wear. It wasn’t a quick make for me, but definitely worth it 🙂