Gray/Silver Sequin Blouse

A sequin blouse is perfect to wear around the holidays, though I plan to wear this top casually, pairing it with slim jeans or corduroy pants, the hem half-tucked.  What is half-tucked?  Loosely tuck in only the front, leaving the back out.  Alternatively tuck in the right front and back, leaving the left side out.  Please refer to J. Crew catalogs for photo illustrations. 

The blouse is made from stretch tulle embroidered with flat silver metallic sequins (by the manufacturer, not me).  I constructed the front band, yoke, cuffs, collar and neckband from gray double knit.  The double knit is interfaced with fusi-knit to stabilize it.  The sequin fabric is somewhat heavy so the interfaced knit panels can hold the weight of the sequins while maintaining nicely detailed collar and cuffs.



 


If I had used sequin tulle for the collar, yoke, cuffs etc. the blouse would probably be somewhat monotonous; the details would be lost in a sea of sequins.  I worked too hard on this blouse for that to happen!


I chose McCall's 6649 for the garment because it has bust darts, and front and back fish eye darts.  Without these darts, the shirt would be boxy and that is not the look I want. 

The blouse construction is identical to the steps illustrated in my 'Traditional Shirt Tutorial Parts 1-3' except for two additional steps:

Additional Step 1:  After you cut out the garment panels, you need to remove the sequins from the seam allowances, hem allowances, and dart areas.  The sequins are cut off, leaving the threads that held them still on the garment panels.  Those threads are needed to stabilize the sequins left on the panels.  At left is the bodice left front.

The back panel has two fish eye darts.  Note the hem allowance has not been cleared of sequins yet.  I will settle on a hem length first, then clean the hem allowance. 

The sleeve placket area must be cleared so a cuff can be attached. 

Additional Step 2:  After the garment is constructed, examine the seam lines.  Are there bare patches where the sequins were cleared from the seam allowances?  At left is a photo of the armhole.  The bare patch interrupts the nice lines of the garment, so I will hand sew sequins in the bare patch. 

What a difference a few hand-sewn sequins make!  This is the same armhole ten minutes later.  I spent 1.5 hours hand-sewing sequins to cover the side seams, fish eye darts, and armholes. 




The extra effort is justified because this garment is timeless and will stay in my wardrobe for decades.