Minerva Bloggers Network - the Russian Dolls Blouse

For this month's Minerva project, I decided on something small and sweet, namely McCall's 6020, version C.

Version C in white (top)

On the recent Minerva meet-up, I admired all of the cute little prints they had in stock, particularly this one:

And so I turned it into this:

The blouse was pretty simple to put together, with a some bust darts and little tucks at the waist, front and back, for shaping. The trickiest part was the unusual front closure, which called for lots of clipping to produce these crisp right angles:

The sleeves went in really well - the fabric has a tiny bit of natural stretch, so they eased in without the usual puckering and gathering:

I used a catch-stitch to hold the sleeve hem in pace - you can just see a few of the stitches in the picture above.

I can already tell that there's going to be one thing that will drive me mad when I wear this blouse - the collar. The design pretty much relies on interfacing and gravity for it to stay in place, but of course as you move, it moves. I just know I'm going to be fiddling with it constantly!

But on the whole I'm pleased with how flattering this design is - it makes my waist looks freakily small in these pictures!

To finish, I added 3 little red buttons:

And that's it! Just in time for a short break I've got planned in Budapest at the end of the  month, where there are Russian Dolls everywhere you look (don't know why...)

See you soon!