The Front Complete

When I open this page and see this photo, my first thought is that it is someone's underwear! not so attractive.

Front bands stitched, pressed and edge-stitched onto front inserts.

Well I figured out what the Burda instructions meant. I guess it took actually having the pattern pieces in hand and following the directions exactly to "get it". This entire front yoke is top-stitched onto the front pieces, rather than being stitched in a curved seam. This allows you to construct the front bands and top-stitch them onto the front inserts, and make that funny loop at the bottom of the band before the entire piece is then plunked on top of the blouse front and edge-stitched in place.

This works well; my only complaint is that the raw edges inside now are raw; I should have serged them single layer before beginning the whole process; now they are sewn through at the center front, so that you cannot serge the seam allowances without stopping short of the middle and beginning again on the other side. So, I took out my old pinking shears (I don't think I have used them in over a decade) and simply pinked the edges. If I make this blouse again, I will finish the raw edges at the start and solve this problem.

Front bands laid on top of each other and pinned in place, ready to put onto the blouse front.


Blouse front pinned onto my dressform. This fabric is too light for this design, from what I can see at this point, and I am thinking this looks like a maternity blouse rather than a cute tunic top. We shall see as it progresses; it may end up on someone else. Actually this might work better as a dress than a blouse, if it were longer.