Sewing for others: Floral Blouse

I've always enjoyed making things for other people and as my sewing has improved this has expanded to sewing for others outside of my family, something that I'm always happy to do. One of the main issues around sewing for a hobby is that I have ended up with quite a lot of clothes! On top of this, buying fabric isn't cheap. Sewing for other people is the perfect way to continue to sew without ending up with too many clothes or having to spend even more money on fabric. It also allows me to try sewing different styles of clothing that I might not make for myself. 

One of my mum's friends gave me a top of hers which she wanted to be replicated along with some fabric to do so. It was a fairly standard blouse which was easy enough to copy and I always enjoy the process of copying a RTW garment into a handmade one. It's actualy extremely similar to this top that I made my mum a couple of years ago (which she still loves!) so I was familiar with transferring the darts onto a pattern, which was probably the hardest part of the pattern drafting process. The original top did have a button placket down the back but I omitted this as it wasn't actually needed to put the top on and off. To make up for the lack of detail on the back I added a centre back seam that I topstitched either side of, although in hindsight the fabric is busy enough not to need it.

I tend to almost always sew facings on woven garments as I prefer the cleaner finish. However, with the interest of copying the top that I had been given I made some bias binding for this blouse to do a bias-neckline and I'm surprised at how much I like it! I think that my adversion to bias is when the neckline is bias bound as it often results in an uneven and somewhat bumpy neckline. In this case the binding is sewn right-sides together and then turned under and topstitched so that you can't see any of it on the right side of the garment which I like a lot more that sandwiching the neckline between the bias binding. I'm really pleased with how neat it looks too, especially on the inside!

I'm very happy with how this top has turned out and hopefully the recipient will be pleased too! One of the main differences in my sewing when it comes to others is spending a bit longer focusing on smaller details such as ensuring that the topstitching is completely straight. The pressure of sewing for someone else often leads to a slightly cleaner finish which is something I always try to incorporate into my own sewing too even though it's tempting to cut corners if no-one else knows!