Hazel Blouse

I can’t quite believe that it’s been 3 months since my last post – where did that time go?! Turns out having a sewing studio built in your garden really does fill your days, especially when there are delays, things don’t go quite to plan and your builders don’t have much attention to detail… Anywho, the project is now finished and I have made my first garment in my lovely new sewing space!

I absolutely love working for The Fold Line and one of the perks of my role is the abundance of sewing inspiration. We recently added a new designer to our online shop and I immediately fell in love with all of Veronica Tucker’s patterns, but it was the Hazel Dress and Blouse that really caught my eye. I’m a big fan of sewing and wearing gathers and I thought the unusual yoke seam made the design so interesting – I just had to have it! I bought the pattern and was planning to add it to my sewing plans for 2024, but when I realised I already had the perfect fabric in my stash and an occasion to wear a pretty dress, I bumped it right to the top of my sewing queue.

The fabric is a cotton voile with pre-sewn, narrow pin tucks – I bought it from Cloth Atelier at the Festival of Quilts in August after regretting not buying it at the Stitch Festival last year! It’s perfect for the Hazel because it has good body and holds gathers well, but is also very lightweight. Although I had bought a generous 3m cut, the fabric is only 110cm wide before the pin tucks are sew, which means the finished width is only 89cm. Any pattern with this volume of gathers is fabric hungry and the fabric requirement for the dress was 3.8m of 115cm wide fabric. I quickly altered my plans and decided to make the blouse instead, which only required 2.6m of 115cm fabric.

After a very long game of pattern Tetris, I managed to squeeze all of the pieces in by cutting the back yoke lining on the cross-grain, slightly reducing the width of the bottom tier and having an extra seam in both the front and back bottom tier pieces. No-one would ever know I made these tiny changes and I was so pleased I was able to make it work – it’s honestly a bit worrying how satisfying I find winning at the game of ‘I really don’t have enough fabric’!

I haven’t had much time to sew recently, so I just worked on my blouse whenever I had half an hour to spare. The construction is actually really not that complicated at all and I found the pattern to be well-drafted – everything came together beautifully and I really enjoyed the whole making process. The instructions are pretty good and there is also a video tutorial that goes alongside the booklet. I much prefer written instructions, so I didn’t refer to the video at all, but I did find there were a few small details missing from the written instructions. For example, there were no measurements for the elastic in the sleeve cuff and if you opted for the rouleau method of making the neck ties, there were no directions for finishing the ends. These things may have been covered in the video, but I don’t expect to have to watch that when there is 29 page instruction booklet. I would definitely still buy another Veronica Tucker pattern, but the instructions could be a little more detailed.

I made my blouse in the size 8, which was the best match for my bust measurement. I’m really pleased with the fit – the yoke sits perfectly on my shoulders and there is plenty of volume, but not so much that I feel swamped – the balance is just right! I took my blouse out for a spin to the Fold Line team’s Christmas gathering in London this week and I felt great in it – festive, thanks to the beautiful colour, and comfortable thanks to all of those inches of ease to hide the three-course food baby I acquired during the evening!

I’d still really like to give the Hazel dress a try and I’ll be keeping my eye out for some suitable fabric on future shopping adventures. I think keeping it lightweight is absolutely key, so I’ll be choosing carefully – I might even make sure I have enough yardage if I’m buying specifically for the pattern, but don’t count on it!