I own a lot of 70s vintage patterns, mostly Simplicity and Butterick, and I am always attracted to ones with this Victorian inspired ruffled neckline. I bought this ©1978 Simplicity pattern recently, and surprised myself by sewing it up right away! It helped that the previous owner of the pattern had already cut out the tissue - I hate doing that, and when I get to skip that step, I’m more likely to dive right in to a pattern.

Don’t those gals on the envelope look sweet? I decided to make view 1, and began flipping through my fabric stash for the ideal lightweight cotton. To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of ditsy prints, so I don’t even know how I ended up with a seemingly never ending supply of this Liberty Tana lawn fabric. I have already made a sundress out of it! This fabric has a super smooth hand, is very tightly woven and light weight, and softens up as you wash it, which has made me come around to it. My initial instinct was to use it almost as a solid color, and break it up with a white ruffle trim (like view 3), or with solid white fabric from my stash. But I didn’t have anything perfect. Luckily, we were headed to Soho for the afternoon, so I made a beeline to Purl Soho, because I know they carry Liberty Tana lawn.

It was fun to flip through all the prints and compare them to the one I already had. Ultimately, Jason helped me pick the darker, blue based floral. I think it’s the perfect mis-match to break up the print and define the details, which would be lost if everything was the same print all over.

This pattern tissue was printed in a way I hadn’t seen before: it’s printed in Red ink (size 12) and Green ink (size 14), and sometimes the colors overlap to be Brown (same piece for both sizes). The pattern is clearly written and all notches and marking lined up easily.

The only potentially tricky bit is the ruffles: the pattern tissue has 5 pieces labelled “ruffle” - just “ruffle” - the written instructions are clearly written and illustrated, so they explain what to do. It would have been better if the tissue pieces said “front yoke ruffle”, etc., but I suspect this isn’t getting reprinted, ha. The pattern assumes you know how to get crisp corners at the yoke, with the ruffle, so if you haven’t done that before, you might want to make a little corner mock up.

I sewed this right out of the envelope as view 1. I didn't even alter for height like I usually do, and then decided it was much more wearable for me as a blouse anyway, so I shortened it. I did a high low hem, in case I ever wear it untucked, but I usually wear these soft blouses tucked into high waisted jeans. I used an invisible zipper at the back neck because that’s what I had on hand, and of course I used my contrast fabric to break it up a bit.

This sews up really quickly, especially if you have a rolled hem foot to hem all your ruffles quickly. I always enjoy gathering my ruffles by hand, but I used various feet to otherwise speed up my production (invisible zipper foot for the zipper, walking foot when sandwiching ruffles between 2 layers). This was just what I needed after working on my winter coat for so long!! All that’s left of that project is hand hemming, but I still haven’t been able to force myself to sit down and do it. I just cut out another vintage blouse, oh well!

I’m so happy with how this came out. I especially like the pattern mixing, and since I lopped off the skirt/dress portion of this, I have more of both these prints! Looks like I could make another coordinating blouse…. I’m also really hapy I added the stripe at the bottom of the collar to break up where the collar and yoke meet. I just made a piece of bias binding and hand slip stitched it on. It’s the only part of this garment that gives it away as handmade, which is always a sweet touch.

Let me know if you sew this pattern! I’d love to see other versions, I think there is so much possibility. XO, Martha