So the variation on this blouse are the pintucks on the center front.

Pintucks are really easy to add.  When you cut the front piece on the fold, you just add however much extra you'd like pintucked.  I added 2" on the fold which required enough pintucks to pull in the blouse 4 inches total.

I sprayed the front piece with starch and ironed it in a few times to help make it stiff and minimize the drape/ shifting.

Next I drew the vertical lines starting with the center front and drawing them 1/2" apart.

You fold the fabric on a line and carefully sew (in this case) a 1/8" seam all the way down, then fold on the next chalked line, etc all the way across.  Each tuck takes a 1/4" out of the blouse.

Once the pintucks have brought the blouse back to the correct width, you finish the blouse the same as a regular one.

 

 Adding a placket is really easy and opens up a lot of opportunities to make tops with non-stretch fabric.

I use it a lot with kids clothes since they have large heads in proportion to the rest of their bodies.

I also made a longer sleeve and cut it on the bias.

Day 2 of Simple Blouse Week has a contrasting collar!

I cut the neck a little higher and added a pointed peter pan collar in satin.

The other change on this variation from the basic simple blouse pattern is the bias tape trim on the sleeve hem.

This dot fabric was on the sheer side, so the blouse is also lined, which helped create a nice neckline with the collar.
The raw edges of the all three layers is folded in between the blouse and lining to make a smooth, finish around the neck without any top-stitching.

The biggest challenge was drafting the one piece collar.
Erin's tutorial helped make it easier than my original plan.
I went with pointed tips to make it a little different than a regular curved peter pan collar.

I'm pretty excited to switch gears from all the Ellie/ toddler/ girl/ dresses and do some selfish sewing for myself.

After each baby I seem to feel disappointed when I unpack my regular clothes and want to throw them all away and start over.

Maybe it has to do with the hormones or something, post-partum wardrobe meltdown syndrome?
But I really wanted some new tops once packing up the maternity clothes and I'm still trying to avoid knit t-shirts.

The solid knit Target or Old Navy tees served me well the last 15 years of my life.  

I'm trying to branch out more into the blouse arena where the fabric doesn't cling to my saggy post-baby gut.

Plus summer is on its way and a looser woven blouse is much cooler than the knit tees right next to my skin.

Thus I have a whole week of posts based on my original simple blouse from last summer.

So get ready for:

here on the blog.

There's five different variations of the basic simple blouse planned.

My blouse pattern is as simple as it comes, no boob darts, no closure (neck is large enough to go over head) and no special seams.

I'm planning on keeping the posts simple with only a few pictures, as the same shirt 5 ways doesn't really require too much elaboration...and I got lazy with the photoshoots. :)

I had specific outfit ideas around each blouse, but decided just to take photos of them in jeans for this go around.  Hopefully they'll pop up again in future posts down the road.

(I'm also hoping to sew a batch of casual summer skirts)

These were really fun to whip out, taking between 15 minutes to 1 hour depending on the variation.

So first up:

Printed

I don't often sew with prints, especially in clothing for me, so this is my subtle branching out into the scary realm of printed fabric.

My favorite part is the front loop detailing.

 I'm planning on layering it with longer sleeves for fall.

We took these photos at a park when we were visiting my mom in southern Utah.

Ellie insisted on wearing her green rain boots.

She's got her own sense of style that I wasn't willing to fight! 

I'm excited for next week--it's 5 days of SIMPLE BLOUSES!!!

I've been pretty Ellie focused lately in my sewing, so it's been fun to recently pump out a few quick tops for myself and it will be weird to have a post every day which hasn't happened in some time.

Ellaria loves silky things.

Like my underwear she'll steal and stretch out.

The top goes over the head with the little sleeves.

I can't believe she's two!  

Time flies and she's grown a lot and is our little maniac.

She has so much energy and keeps me running way more than my first kid ever did!

I wish I was a cool mom that did the huge themed, napkin-straw coordinated birthday parties, but we keep it pretty simple at our house and just have a cake with "2" in sprinkles.