Crafty: Simple Blouses

Several years ago I bought this pattern, Simplicity 3887, for easy, breezy lightweight shirts to bring to Africa with me. I made a muslin of that white shirt, the middle one on the left-hand side. I really liked it, but for some reason never got around to making wearable versions of it.

Fast forward to now, when I'm busting out of my largest shirts. I dug into my sewing stash, found the muslin, tried it on, moved the tie up so the shirt has an empire waist, and voila! -- the perfect shirt not only for my growing tummy but the tropical heat as well.

Because these shirts are not fitted and don't have careful tailoring, they are quick and easy to make. You just have to make sure it fits around the shoulders so that it doesn't slide off (if you have small shoulders like I do). The puffiness around the neckline and sleeves cover up a lot of mistakes!

I have lots of cottons and linens in my fabric stash and I even had some elastic for the sleeves so I didn't have to worry about shopping (and shipping). I cut out three shirts in different fabrics, so that it's not quite as obvious that they are exactly the same. But by using the same color thread for all three, I could sew them all up at the same time, speeding up the sewing time. I went from zero shirts to three in a few days. I want to make more, with some of the locally printed fabrics from here, as reminder of my Africa pregnancy. One of the most time-consuming parts of making the shirt for me is making the tie, because I hate turning such a narrow strip right-side-out. I've got some extra wide ribbon that I've been using, and you could use any ribbons, narrow scarves, or anything else appropriate that you've got laying around (saving time and using something you've already got).

And when I'm no longer pregnant and have back something resembling my original waist, I can move the tie back down to my middle, making this a cost-effective, versatile shirt.

The finished product (one of them, at least), covering up my 24 weeks' pregnant stomach:

Pattern envelope image from Simplicity.com.