Rosy’s Rita Blouse!
This wonderful white cotton broderie anglaise is just a delight to cut, sew and wear! It’s super soft and feels really lovely on the skin.
I had originally planned to make a tunic with the fabric but it didnt work out, so instead I made a tried and true favourite of mine, the Rita Blouse, by Charm Patterns. There are LOTS of pattern pieces for this garment, so I find it really useful to label them using a Frixion (heat erasable) pen. However, I accidentally cut the middle front panel as 2 pieces instead of on the fold, so there’s an extra seam than normal!
The original inspiration for my tunic had been a ready to wear blouse from Cath Kidston, which had giant red ricrac edging. I had already bought the ric rac, so I decided to use it on this blouse. I’ve seen a few Rita blouse with ricrac trim, so I knew it would look cute. After I had sewn the channel for the neckline elastic, but before inserting the elastic, I attached the ricrac using one line of straight stitching.
I want to insert here, a word of warning for when using coloured ricrac on pale fabrics. My ricrac is made from polyester, so technically it should be colourfast. However, I soaked it in water before using it, just to be sure. Lucky I did that, because a lot of red dye washed off. After the initial lot of dye, I rinsed it twice more and no further colour came out. I think that the first bit of red dye was obviously just left over from the manufacturing process.
Finally, after all the hiccups in this project, I thought that a “Perfectly Imperfect” label would finish the garment of very well!
I’m so pleased with this blouse and have already worn it with lots of other garments. My 50s style jeans and a red circle skirt to name a couple!
