The 13th Birthday Outfit 

Blouse - Part One

As you saw yesterday, I've started on the blouse.  Although I like the pattern, I am making a few changes to the construction.  Today I'll show you one of those. 

The blouse has the faux placket topstitched in place and then the shoulder seams are sewn.  I'm using french seams on the inside, and will show those at another time.  The next step is to complete the neck facing.  This is one of those reverse facings, which is folded to the outside and topstitched down.  This is a nice technique, which leaves the inside nice and clean. 

I departed from the pattern for this part by constructing the facing and the interfacing separately, then joining them at the outer edge with a 1/4" seam.  The pattern instructions have you interfacing the facing pieces, join them and then turn under 1/4" all the way around the outer edge.  Instead of fussing with that turning under, stitching them together, turning and pressing was much easier. 

I then proceeded according to the instructions, by stitching the the facing to the neck edge with the right side of the facing to the wrong side of the neck edge, turn the facing outward, understitching and then topstitching the facing in place.  Clean and neat!

Tomorrow looks like a good day to finish up the top.  I've got one more construction change for that, too.

Parting Shot:  Orange Lilies.  We have lots of the orange lilies, and they're in full bloom now, which fills the entry way with color.