Blouse, 2005 I found this cute Laura Ashley fabric once on a really good price. I knew I had to buy it, though I was not sure what I would eventually make of it. After it had lied in my closet for some time I at last decided to make a shirt of it. As the material was very thin, I backed it with another thin white cotton fabric, working with the two layers as one. The finished shirt has a nice firm feel of a thicker fabric, without being too stiff yet, and the common problem of bra lines showing through white shirts is completely avoided too.
I don't use patterned materials very much, so it's always a much needed practise to work with one. In this case, though, I had an easy time with it, as the motifs are quite light and scattered around loosely. Actually the pattern even disguises the seams and darts instead of catching the attention on broken motifs. I tried, however, to keep the larger, central motifs intact, and placed the large main motif portraying a romantic tete-a-tete under a cupid statue in the back (where it's always covered by my hair, unfortunately) and in the large cuffs. The cute fabric needed a bit of a contrast, so I threw in some narrow black lace. As I wear so much black, it will work better with my pants and skirts, too. A friend of mine once told me that the shirt reminds her of a toilet wall - which is true, because I have a rather similar wallpaper (in light blue, though) on one wall of my toilet!
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