A friend of mine gave me some fabric she had lying around and wasn’t going to use, so she gave it to me. I had it for quite a while and then thought it was perfect for a Colette Violet blouse. This pattern has been on my list to make for ages, and I’m definitely going to make at least one more in the future.

I love this gingham! I don’t wear red a huge amount – despite trying to wear red and knitting my Miette cardigan in red, I don’t feel like it’s super flattering on me. This fabric, though, isn’t all red, so I feel like it’s fine.

I made the effort to match the stripes going across (unlike for my GBSB Boyfriend shirt, where I just didn’t even think of pattern matching!). It’s pretty close across the front. I thought about trying to match the downwards stripes too, and it kind of worked on the front, but I’m out by one square in the repeat.

At the side seams I didn’t bother matching the stripes vertically, just horizontally.

I made a straight size 0, with no changes – I love loose fitting patterns for this reason! As long as it’s vaguely the right size, there aren’t huge fitting issues usually. The only change I did make was to use 6 buttons instead of 7 as that’s how many I already had in my stash. I spaced them at every 10cm.

It looks equally good tucked into a skirt (in this case my Navy Simplicity 2451) and loose with jeans. Cue loads of photos!

I thought the instructions were really clear and there was a handy tip for sewing the hem at the button band facing, so that it looks like the below – basically the hem goes inside the facing, rather than having to turn up the facing and have a really thick hem.

I sewed in one of my labels, of course.

So this was quite a quick and thrifty make as I was given the buttons and the fabric. All I had to buy was the pattern – and if I make it multiple times, then the cost of the pattern goes down per make. I bought the patter from Ray Stitch, who stock basically all the independent pattern labels, meaning I don’t have to wait for postage when I’m feeling impatient! I currently have about 6 independent patterns I’ve bought from them that I still need to make up – I’m going to ban myself from buying any more patterns or fabric until I’ve made up a lot of what I already have!