Progress on the Lovely Eyelet Blouse

Last week I gave a sneak peek of the blouse in progress.

I got it to the point where it needed the collar and button stands. For some reason, I always wait til I need the interfacing to actually cut it. It works for me.

So I went for my regular very light weight fusible interfacing. I don't like collars and button stands to march to attention and affect the hang of a blouse. Especially if it is a light weight summer blouse. and if it is a medium weight fabric, the fabric on it's own gives enough beefiness with the lightweight interfacing.

This is a more accurate colour than the other photos.

However this time, I realised that the eyelets would show the white interfacing through the holes. So I went with a different option that I often use. I used a different fabric which would tone with the blouse fabric and treated it as a sew-in interfacing.

Not heresy!

Using either self fabric or something with a similar hand to the fashion fabric was a technique often used in the past. When you think about it really, in the scheme of things of the time line of sewing, interfacing - and especially non-woven and very particularly fusible interfacing - is relatively new. So just because it is commonly used now, doesn't mean you always have to use it. You can use a fabric which will work with your fashion fabric to give the hand you want. And just use the techniques you would use if you were using a sew-in interfacing. Most sewing books will give you instructions if you only have experience with fusible interfacing.

So, anyway, instead of the white fabric showing through, I chose this piece of cotton lawn that was one of my hand dyed experiments. It would work well for the collar - and I only had just enough for that. The cotton lawn would give a bit of support to the collar, but wouldn't stand up like a flag like using a thicker quilting fabric or cotton poplin.

You can see that the colour blends well enough that you don't notice a problem with the holes. The affect I wanted.


I didn't take a photo of the fabric I used for the button stands. but it was a very light turquoise/mint coloured muslin (British muslin, not American quilting muslin). The fashion fabric has a very soft hand, so I didn't want much sturdiness in the button stand, just enough to support the buttons and the button holes. I cut the muslin the same size as the button stand and treated the two pieces as one. So when the button stand was folded over, it meant there were 2 layers of muslin. It gives support, but still retains a flexible draping quality.

I machine stitched the collar and the button stand right sides together, and then folded the seam allowance in and hand stitched on the inside like you would a binding or a waistband. Now I just need to make the buttonholes and stitch the hem. I hope the eyelet stitching doesn't cause problems with making the buttonholes!