#build thread

You don't get to see much of Noel's blouse, just enough to be sure of what it is. A white button-up with no visible buttons. At first I wondered if this was just a stylistic choice, but every reference I found for both her and Ninny showed absolutely no buttons on the front of the shirt! Upon doing some research I found that it was called a hidden placket.

A lot if my original plans went out the window with this one. At first I was going to frankenstein two commercial patterns together, but my first mock up turned out shapeless and oversized. Luckily I had previously printed out the blouse from Indigo Jinjo's Madoka Magical Girl pattern. Having made this before, I knew it would fit. Plus, I love the way princess seems look!

This left me with three challenges. The pattern did not have: a hidden placket, the type of collar I needed, or sleeves.

For my hidden placket the fabric is folded over itself to create a flap that covers the buttons. At first I found a commercial pattern that fit my wants and tried to make that... but the instructions were too difficult to parse. It involved cutting out different pieced for each placket, and that seemed like it would become very bulky. Instead I watched a video on it and just followed that example.

This left me with three challenges. The pattern did not have: a hidden placket, the type of collar I wanted, or sleeves.

Noel's collar appears to be a classic collar. It's difficult to tell because it's mostly covered by her bow and capelet, so it's an educated guess. I ended up drafting the collar based off of other button-ups I owned.

For the sleeves I did end up using a commercial pattern: Butterick B6294. This is the pattern I tossed out for having unclear instructions on how to do the placket. The sleeve instructions were somewhat better. It is exactly what I wanted out of a buttoned cuff; it even has a pleat at the cuff.

Any exposed seams have been serged together. This was the first time I ever used the cutting blade on my serger. Normally I like to serge the patten pieces before I sew everything together, but since white is see through I wanted to trim the seams and then serge them. The collar and cuffs are slip stitched closed, and the buttons are hand sewn on.

All-in-all, this was actually a delight to make from start to finish. I guess I was just on a roll.