How To: Blouse with Neckline and Sleeve Lace Detail

Happy Valentine's Day! Made something more romantic than my usual style for the occasion ❤ ♡
The For Love & Lemons Wildflower collection from last fall made me fall hard for ribbons, lace, and embroidered details.. We'll see how long the phase lasts!

Tutorials take a lot of time & effort to create, and I choose to make mine available for free. If you enjoy this guide, you can support me with a donation that feels right for you, here.

TOOLS:

Fabric (I used georgette) 1.5-2m  |  Scissors  |  Thread, sewing machine, needle  |  Fabric marker  |  Pins  |  Ribbon  |  Not in image, but also used a bit of bias tape for the neckline keyhole

I. Here's an idea of my cut top pieces (my size: EU36/US4).

II. .. And the sleeves. A bit on the shorter side as I later added an extension with the ribbon detail.

III. To start making the bib area with the lace ribbon detail, I first measured a rectangular area around the neckline (for me, an A4 sheet of paper happened to be the perfect size):

And marked it on the top:

Then cut out the piece:

.. And finished the raw edges with a zig-zag, folded about 0.7 cm on the reverse, and hand-sewed the fold in place.

IV. Then I took my ribbon and cut off the part I didn't need with the flowers, leaving only the geometrical pattern I was more into:

.. And measured the approximate length I needed to go around the area I had just prepped in the previous step. Note: this is how I determined initially that an A4 paper would be the right size: the pattern of the ribbon needed to fit nicely along the edges. I checked where I'd need to sew the ribbon at an angle to form the corners.

.. And sewed accordingly:

Which gave me this on the right side.

V. I then took my needle and thread and carefully sewed the sides of the ribbon together where they met at the corner, to create the illusion that this is just one piece of lace.

After pressing I had a nicely rectangular ribbon trim:

.. That fit perfectly along the sides of the bib area, where I pinned it.

VI. Then just sewed on the right side, along the edges to attach the ribbon.

VII. Next I trimmed just a bit of length and width off of the centre piece I had cut out (to make more of the lace visible in between).

.. And cut the piece in half width-wise, zig-zagged the edges, and pressed an approx. 0.7 cm fold around the straight edges. I added more ribbon in the middle of the two pieces to re-attach them together into one piece.

VIII. From there I just constructed the bib area by hand-sewing the centre piece in it's place on the reverse side. I could have layered the middle vertical piece on top as well, but after trying different arrangements this was the one I preferred.

IX. After completing the shoulder seams with flat-felled seams, at the back I did a keyhole following the same bias tape method I did in this neckline technique.

X. Then I prepped the neckline like I had before with the bib area raw edges - zig-zagging and pressing a fold which I hand-stitched on the reverse.

XI. After which I was ready to pin more ribbon along the neckline, and hand-sew it in place.

XII. This is what I had afterwards. Note I cut all excess ribbon off where two different pieces of ribbon met, and hand-sewed together to make the lace continuous.

XIII. To add the same kind of lace detail to the sleeves, I cut an extension piece of the fabric, prepped it as above and layered with another piece of ribbon.

XIV. For the back of the neck, I made two strands of matching straps and attached those on each side of the keyhole opening, to be able to tie a bow at the back of the neck.

The rest of the construction was as usual - completing sleeve under seams, side seams, and hemming the top.

Feeling very 18th century right now.


xo,

Julia