My Paris/Asker/Athens blouse

This blouse might not be my best make, but it is nevertheless very special to me. Because this is a blouse with a story.



I sat on this piece of fabric for a bit over a year. I was hoping to make something out of it within a month or two of getting it, but as usual other plans got in the way and that didn't happen.

How I got this piece of fabric is what makes it special. Last year in June, I was flying to Egypt to spend the last few days of Ramadan and Eid with the family. It was a bit of a weird trip in the sense that I wasn't flying straight back to Norway after, so this wasn't the standard return ticket business. I came across a really cheap ticket to Cairo via Athens with 6-7 hours stopover in Athens, which is a long enough one to actually go to the city and wander around a bit.

I started googling and found out that I'll arrive in the city itself a bit too late to see the Parthenon...hmmm....OK. Fabric shopping then? google...nope! On exactly that day of the week the fabric shops closed early. OK. I guess I'll just walk around town.

The day before my travel, I got a comment on one of my sewing projects on burdastyle.com from my sewing friend Elpida, who is from Athens, so in my reply I asked if she had any recommendations. A reply after the other, she arranged to meet me during my layover and also informed two other sewing friends about my arrival and one of them would also join us, this was Aida. They took me around, we had dinner together and I really enjoyed myself in the company of these two awesome ladies. It was during the dinner that Aida gave me a gift: This piece of fabric with Paris theme! How awesome is that?

It was only this year that I finally got around to planning this blouse though, and had a little guessing competition out here on my blog where one of the items was the fabric and pattern of this blouse. I didn't know that Aida had a piece of the same fabric herself, but she did, and she contacted me and told me she liked my pattern-fabric match and thought of making the same blouse too. I thought that was really cool, a bit like having the coolest friendship bracelet ever! And we decided to go ahead and make the same blouse. Check out Aida's post about her blouse here. See how awesome her blouse is!

Now this is a sewing post after all so a bit of the technical now 😄. The pattern I used is Burda Style 06/2016 #118B without any modifications, and here are some warnings/advices about it:
- I found it very difficult to get the side slits to look good using the instructions as they are. If I'm to make this again, I would press the side seams open instead of together to the back.
- The collar stands up a bit where it connects to the blouse, but I don't mind that.
- The sleeves can be a bit tight with certain movements, so if you're a bit bigger there, measure before cutting.
All in all, I like how it turned out and even the slits is something that basically only me will notice.

And now I have a Paris theme blouse made in Asker from fabric from Athens 😃