My latest sewing project was a blouse using the Butterick pattern B5955. The description of the blouse states that it is a very loose-fitting pullover that has a V-neck top and a back yoke with slightly forward shoulder seams extending into dolman sleeves.
Butterick patterns have 5 types of fit. These are fitted, close fitting, loose fitting, semi fitted and very loose fitting. You can find these terms in the garment descriptions on the Butterick pattern envelopes. These 5 terms will tell you what to anticipate when it comes to the fitting of the item. Each term indicates an amount of wearing ease that is built into the pattern. Ease is the extra inches built into a pattern for wearing room.
That being said, in reviewing this pattern, this finished blouse ended up being extremely large for me the first time I sewed it. I had to adjust it to fit afterwards and sew it to fit again. This could have been prevented had I taken notice of the wearing ease of this pattern. As described on the envelope, this is a very loose fitting blouse. According to the Butterick ease chart, very loose fitting will have an ease of over 8 inches. That’s alot!
After sewing the blouse to fit me again, I took a picture of the blouse that actually fit me compared to the sewing pattern. What a big difference!
In addition and most importantly, I should have also taken notice of the pattern’s finished garment measurements. Had I done this, I probably would have sewn a blouse that fit me the first time based on my measurements regardless of ease.
You can find the finished garment measurements by looking on the tissue and finding the symbol that looks like a circle with a cross through it.
On a side note, I have noticed that most sewing patterns have so much wearing ease in the patterns that in most cases, you can get away with wearing one size smaller than the pattern companies tell you that you do based on your measurements.
So onto my finished product. This pattern calls for crepe de chine, lawn, or charmeuse fabric. I used a navy cotton lawn. I changed up the pattern a little bit by folding the end of the sleeves and sewing it in place.
I will definitely sew this blouse again, except next time, I will use a crepe de chine with a pattern on the fabric. I felt that using the navy colored cotton lawn made me look like I was wearing scrubs.
Here is my finished product:
Adventures of Sweet Monday 