Do It Yourself : How to Make Your Own Blouse

You can make any apparel make glamorous through use of simple things that are generally available in your house. If you have a plain simple blouse that you wear on your jeans, you can make it look attractive and pretty by making some small changes and putting in some labor.

All you need to do is to measure yourself and draw out the measurements on paper in sections, the way it is found on purchased patterns. Measure all the sections individually. The best way to measure is either to take the help of a friend or to use the best fitting clothing in your wardrobe and determine the sections that you need to measure. For instance, a blouse would require measurements for:

• shoulders
• sleeves, length and circumference
• arm hole
• front and back of the neck and depth
• bust section
• middle section
• bottom section
• blouse height from behind

Almost everyone has some outfit that they are possessive about or fond of, which they cannot imagine parting with, despite the fact that the piece of clothing has outlived its use. Such pieces are perfect for being dissected. Although time-consuming, it is worth the effort. Dissemble all the parts including the darts and the gatherings, lightly iron them, ensuring that all seam allowances are flat and open. After this, you need to lay out all the pieces on paper and trace them out. Make sure that you draw out each mark (including the placement of the buttonhole, darts) meticulously. Instead of a butcher’s paper, you can draw the patterns on a plain sheet of paper and once you have all the tracings in place, cut out the paper pattern and then cut the material accordingly.

Many prefer DIY sewing due to the low expense this method entails. A way of furthering its cost-effectiveness is by creating the basic 5-piece clothing combination. This combination should include making two blouses, one skirt, a pair of pants and a jacket. The idea behind this kind of clothing is that it can be worn in at least eight combinations such as:

• blouse A and pants
• blouse A and skirt
• blouse B, skirt and jacket
• blouse B, skirt or pants
• blouse A, pants and jacket
• blouse A, skirt and jacket
• blouse B and pants
• blouse B and skirts

In this way, you have a new combination to sport every day. You save on a lot of money while looking stylish everyday of the week.

About the Author

Rana Ardhita is a regular Indonesian mother who runs Islam fashion shop in wisanggeni.com which tries to mix the traditional Indonesian art heritage and Islam culture

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