I was a tester for the newest True Bias pattern, the Roscoe Blouse and Dress, a boho-style, loose-fitting peasant blouse or dress with raglan sleeves, a gathered, split neck with ties.
I chose to test the blouse version, View A... my first test was a bit of a let-down, but purely due to my fabric choice. I used this bright melon colored gauze that I bought on the street in Hong Kong. It's very crinkly with much more mechanical stretch than I anticipated. It stretched so much, width-wise, as I cut, sewed and pressed it that my whole blouse ended up like 3 sizes wider in the body, neckline and cuffs by the time I was done with it! Damn, poor fabric choice can really kill a project, can't it? I'd used gauze recently for my Mojave cover-up, but didn't run into this problem because it wasn't the super crinkly variety.
This is my second version, a winner!:
For my second version, I choose this super lightweight cottony stuff from my stash. I bought it a couple years ago from one of the vendors in Bangkok's China World fabric mall, mostly because I liked the color combo, it was cheap and it's crazy soft.
The fabric is a bit of a b*tch to cut, though. Shifty and impossible to keep straight. Because of my difficulty cutting this fabric, even though I cut it in one layer rather than on the fold, my pattern matching across the raglan sleeves is not the best. I think all the gathers sort of camouflage it a bit, though, so I'm not too bothered by it.
Sewing notes below!
(PS: what is happening with my hand in these photos? I think I was going for "casually tucking hair behind my ear" but ended up with "exasperated but happy 1980s sitcom mom."):
I accidentally forgot to trim the neck facing before turning it under, so the binding on my neck split is wider than Kelli calls for. I couldn't be bothered to unpick it.
Turns out I am terrible at stitching in the ditch, so I ended up finishing the neck binding and cuffs by topstitching. If I were using a fancier fabric, like silk, perhaps I would bust out some hand sewing for this, but that wasn't going to happen for this casual blouse.
This is the tester version and a few minor changes were made for the final Roscoe pattern, including lengthening the blouse a bit. For this version, I just serged the hem and turned it up 1/4".
My final verdict: I really like how my Roscoe turned out!! It's hard to go wrong with True Bias patterns...
I wouldn't say it's exactly my typical style, but damn, a soft flowy blouse feels nice in Bangkok's heat! I'm wearing it here aspirationally styled for the autumn that I wish Bangkok had... skinny jeans and suede booties that would never fly during Thailand's current rainy season:
