Roscoe Blouse with Pfaff Creative Icon Embroidery and Decorative Stitches

 

 Windowpane shirting is always fun to use and sew and when I saw this one on Mood Fabrics's site I knew I had to make something with it.



   This Italian Orchid Windowpane shirting is sold out but Mood Fabrics' has a gorgeous blue one available and it would make a gorgeous garment.  Also, several other pretty cotton wovens that would be perfect for summer sewing.  

  I saw this idea on a RTW site and really wanted to make a top like it, the boho look with dramatic sleeves and a touch of embroidery.  I used the Roscoe Blouse by True Bias for my pattern and changed the sleeves.  First thing was to decide where to add the seam for the fuller part of the sleeve.  I went with about 4 inches from the underarm seam.  For the fullness of the lower seam, I really just went with the amount of fabric width I had to cut two lower sleeves.



 I did add some embroidery to the lower sleeve, using my software. 

Here is the embroidery design from a screen shot, the software is  Premier+2 Embroidery Ultra and I am having so much fun learning this new software.  My local dealer has classes once a month and today's design was inspired from my class.  Most of the design is from the Superdesign section, under Redwork.  Take a look at the middle, that is actually part of the music section.  I loved how it looked on the design. I selected one design and proceed to  the Encore section.  Here you can line the design up different ways and repeat the design.  I just kept building and building.  One trick, I did start at the outer edge, this way I know the largest size of my design.


The stripe in the windowpane is grey and I went with a grey color.  I did do a test with white thread but you could not see the design.  See here is the photo I shared in Instagram stories, the white just doesn't pop.

I loaded the design on my Pfaff Creative Icon

and began stitching.
 

One thing I did and it is so helpful, make some notes on your placement, how many inches down from the top, centered in your fabric and any other special notations.  Sometimes you get pulled away from a project and it is hard to pick up where you left off.



This fabric was a dream to sew and press and the color is gorgeous and actually a color I don't have at all in my wardrobe.   I was thinking about some ribbon with a decorative stitch just above the sleeve seam.  I could not find a ribbon that I liked so I went with decorative stitch.  I just wanted to have something more to enhance the embroidery.  I did find a stitch the mirrored an element from the embroidery

I put on the recommended foot and used it as a guide right next to the seam.

    It always seems I need to make one or two long sleeve blouses for summer, the air conditioning at work or date night is just too chilly.  The orchid color of this fabric, the style and the embroidery just says summer to me.

    This pattern is easy to sew and I have made it a few times.  Do note it is very oversized, which I do not like that much extra garment.  I made this in a size 4 with tapering at the waist for a bit of definition.  The top is 2 inches shorter than the pattern, which was done for the dramatic sleeves.  I just felt like I did not need all that extra length with the statement sleeves. This was a fun project and one that I need to do more often, take a basic pattern and make some changes.  These changes with a fabulous fabric makes it such a fun garment, that is why we sew, right?  Use our tastes and styles to create garments that are just us.