The Oliver + S Class Picnic Blouse is the latest item I have added to Piper's fall clothing collection. I'll be honest and say I'm not crazy about it. For a peasant type top, I thought the pattern was a little fussy. Generally the entire collar/sleeve area around the top of the blouse is turned under into a casing for elastic on a peasant top. For this one, only the sleeves were used to create a casing for the elastic. It required using a bias strip around the top of the sleeve to make the casing and it was very finicky to work with. I'm also not sure about the fabric. I thought I liked it, but after I got started I began to think that maybe it was too much. Piper's cute, I'm sure she can pull it off.
I added piping under the front yoke just to break it up a little and thought it helped to tone everything down just a little.
The sleeves are a 3/4 sleeve and were supposed to be finished with a standard fold under hem (is that a term or did I just make that up?). I changed it up a little by creating a bias binding and gathering the sleeve ever so slightly. Piper was asleep when I was doing this, so I wasn't able to measure her or I might have gathered it more. I wanted to be sure she could still get her arm through it so I only took it in about 1/2 an inch.
A little word of advice. When you are adding your own "touch" to a pattern and it requires that you do it more than once, be sure to finish them at the same time. I did one sleeve and had to stop working because nap time was over so I didn't get to finish the other sleeve until a day or so later. I completely forgot what I had done. I sat there for about 10 minutes inspecting my work trying to figure out how I had finished the first sleeve. Finally it came to me and I think they are the same (or at least they look like they are).
I don't hate this top. Piper will wear it. I just don't think I'm in a hurry to make another.
I think I'm going to try to do some knit tops/dresses next. We're almost ready for fall!
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