This old blouse belonged to my sister in her college years, probably in the seventies. It is very different from the red contemporary dress that I bought in Texas. For one thing, it is completely sewn and embroidered by hand. The fabric is a slightly loosely woven cotton similar to the feed sacks my grandmother used to bring up from Mexico for me to sew into dishtowels.
This blouse is a size small or medium, but because all the pieces are squares or retangles, it is easily sized up to fit anyone. All the measurements written above are taken without the seam allowances, so be sure to add seam allowances when figuring out the size of the pieces to be cut. One measurement I forgot to write in the above diagram is the bottom width which is about 26″ across the front, so about 52″ total.
This photo shows the yoke embroidery, which is a running stitch. It also shows how the fabric is attached to the yoke: the top edge of the fabric is finished and embroidered, then turned over to form a ruffle. The ruffle is then attached to the yoke with a whip stitch forming attractive little triangular pleats. This blouse design could be made using some of the beautiful woven trims available today to take the place of the embroidery.
Here you can see the gusset, which is a square piece set diagonally into the side seam. The sleeve-hem end point of the square is turned under and hemmed down to form a flat edge for the under portion of the sleeve.
In my next post, I will show some of the construction details, including how the seams are finished, especially for the gusset.
This is wonderful! Thanks so much for sharing. I wore these all through high school with bell bottom jeans and huaraches. I had been wanted to make one as a dress for this summer. And I will