Biro-Ink Pivoine Blouse

Here's a new little blouse that kind of got made by accident. I had both the fabric and the pattern sitting in my stash for over six months, and finally I made the connection that they might work well together. And by Jove, they did!

Pattern:

As I've have proclaimed many times before on this blog, I'm a big fan of Delphine et Morissette patterns. And although I'd had my eye on the Pivoine pattern for some time, it wasn't until I saw a few versions on Instagram without the collar that I was truly sold. 

In essence, it's a sweet little loose-fitting blouse. There's gathering into the yoke on the front and back, plus an interesting, sloping yoke seam that piping can be inserted into, should one desire. The armholes are finished with simple, turn-back cuffs. The original pattern includes a rounded collar, but I used bias binding to finish off the neck edge instead. 

The construction of this garment was straight-forward and enjoyable. The instructions are in French, so I copy-and-pasted chunks into Google translate to guide me through.

Fabric:

Isn't it weird how differently the colour of this fabric looks in these two sets of photographs? IRL, it's a biro-ink, navy blue: somewhere in between the two colours that have come out in my pics. The colour aside, what I can tell you is that it's a crepe, most likely viscose. It came to me in the form of a remnant without a label, just over 1m in length. Even though the pattern called for 1.5m, because I was leaving out the collar pieces, I was just about able to squeeze the blouse out of my length of fabric with basically only dust to spare. 

I'd held onto this remnant for about a year because I wasn't sure I'd even wear a top in this colour. I tend to wear dark-coloured bottoms, so I didn't think I could make a navy top work in an outfit with the rest of my clothing selection. But having recently made the fawn-coloured Harper pants, I realised that I do have something suitable now. 

I love garments with simple, contrasting buttons. I went with these basic, two-hole, plastic ones from my stash so that they'd add contrast but wouldn't effect what other colours I could wear this top with too much. 

Thoughts:

I'll admit, I haven't fully integrated this top into my wardrobe yet, and I've only worn it once so far. However, I am currently working on some more bottoms that I hope will look good with it. As for the pattern, I can definitely imagine using it again. I'd like to try it in a cotton lawn, or a double gauze perhaps.