My Madhu blouse (from Seamwork) was a super quick make. Its so satisfying to make something quite quickly that I can get a lot of wear out of straight away. It’s also proved to be a good scrap busting project.
In terms of sizing, I graded from a 10 at the top to a 12 in the waist. My shoulders are pretty small, despite my big bust, and so it’s always good in a top like this, that relies on the fit in the shoulders, to grade from the smaller bust size. (My upper bust is a 36″, bust 40″ and waist 33″). I think that I might lengthen future versions a little. It’s just a tiny bit short, probably because I didn’t so an FBA despite my big bust.
I cut the pattern out from a remnant of cotton leftover from my Peppermint Paddington. It’s a gorgeous cotton print from Blackbird Fabrics (yes, Canada to Scotland, sorry!) I bought earlier in the summer and I wanted to use this summer – I’ve now got two tops from just two metres of it!
Anyhow, madhu took less than three hours in total to make, which is lucky as I’m really struggling for sewing time. Between moving house, my husband having to self-isolate from us while he had Covid, and my daughter going through a sleep regression, I’ve not had much time for myself, never mind the energy for sewing. But we were heading off in holiday to the family caravan and so I managed to cut out a few projects before we went. Somehow I managed to finish this top.
I overlocked the seams, they’re not the tidiest as the tension settings had been knocked about in the car without me realising, so it took a few seams before I got that back to how it should be. Then I couldn’t find my tape measure so couldn’t cut out the elastic, which is essential for the neckline, hem and sleeve hems! Thankfully my mother in law has an emergency sewing repair kit where I found a tape measure. So, one night I sewed all the seams together and overlocked them. The following day my husband and daughter headed to the beach for an hour while I tidied up, so I managed to squeeze in sewing time to press the hems and sew the elastic channels. When they got back I just needed to thread the elastics and secure the channels. My daughter uncharacteristically decided at that point she wanted some milk, and so while sitting with her I managed to thread the elastic through both sleeve hems and the hem. That gave me ten mins while my husband and daughter showered to close off those channels and trim off all the loose threads. And I did it! Then wore the top out to dinner! I was delighted!
The other projects I cut out are still in my unfinished project bag, I haven’t even managed to put the pattern markings on the cut pieces yet. But I’ll get there…one day!
sew slow Sarah 