- Have you ever wondered about the tricks of the blouse trade?

There are many.

Today, we're going to learn several common methods used in blouses.

First, a colleague of mine shared some great fabric play that I'll pass along.

Then, I'll share a factory sewing trick that was passed down to me from a friend.

I think you will love it.

Finally, we'll look at changing a collar to update your favorite blouse.

Blouses are timeless.

As Phillip Lim said, "I make blouses."

And we'll show you some great ideas for great blouses today on on Fit 2 Stitch.

(mid-tempo music) (light piano music) - [Narrator] Fit 2 Stitch is made possible by Pendelton.

Vogue Fabrics.

Bennos Buttons.

Kai Scissors.

OC Sewing.

Mike Gunther Industries.

And Sew Steady.

- When I was in college, one of my assignments was to make a blouse without a pattern.

It was a pattern-making class.

I was supposed to know how to do that.

But I like, froze.

I called my mom, I said, "Mom, mail me a blouse pattern."

She said, "What do you need them for?"

I said "I've got an assignment, "I gotta make a blouse pattern "but I can't make a blouse pattern.

"The rules was, we couldn't buy the pattern, "but it doesn't mean somebody couldn't mail me the pattern.

"You could mail me the pattern, and that would be good."

And she said, "Not a prayer am I gonna mail you a pattern."

So, here's the deal.

Since then, I got through that, I made the blouse pattern.

We have fitted the blouse pattern.

And now what we're gonna do is we're just gonna play.

We're gonna play with the fabric.

We're gonna play with some techniques to make that base blouse into so many other things.

And every bit of this is fun.

Last episode, we had Betty on.

And Betty showed us how to paint on silk.

And that was just really fun.

And after I learned how to do that, I went and practiced and practiced and practiced.

But then I called some of my colleague friends who knew, I knew they did some work with silk, and I...

I got it down to where it's a little easier, but not as good -- different.

So that's why I want to show you this.

And we're just gonna take a few minutes, I wanna show you, I wanna go through the process.

What I think this is, is a great place to maybe start.

It builds your confidence.

It just kinda gets you going, but it's gonna have limitations.

So you're gonna wanna move beyond this; that's my hope.

So let's get started in what we're gonna do.

I made my jean jacket.

I painted the silk.

I didn't paint it, I Sharpied it.

So, now see what we're not gonna do: paints.

We're not gonna have to know the kind of paint and all that kinda stuff.

We're just gonna have to go by Sharpies.

Good old Sharpies.

Fine-point Sharpies is all you need.

You need freezer paper.

And what we're gonna do is we're going to steam the silk onto the freezer paper.

So you're gonna make sure that you steam the wrong side of the silk onto the freezer paper.

Freezer paper has a shiny side, and a dull side.

The shiny side is the waxy side.

So you're just gonna take a medium heat.

You don't need steam.

If you...

If you do steam, it'll resist off the waxy side of the paper, and it'll actually take the silk away from sticking to the shine.

So the shine part of this...

This freezer paper is up.

I'm ironing the silk to the paper.

Now the reason I do this is exactly the same as what Betty had done.

She had kind of made that grid, and she had it all suspended.

This will kind of do your suspension for you.

My test is I want to iron just enough to where you can kind of see that's pulling off.

That means I've done perfect.

If you get it too high-temp, it'll literally like, melt into the paper, and you can't peel it off.

That's when you know that's not good.

So this is why this is really fun.

You can... And I'm gonna kinda show you what I did with this jacket that I have on, is I did parts and pieces.

My goal was to do a jean jacket.

And the reason a jean jacket works so well... You could do blouses, you could do anything.

But in this particular case, I wanted to do a jean jacket because there's little parts.

So I took a little part, like so, and you can see where my cuff is much more dense than my sleeve.

So I just laid on more color into that spot.

And I chose the colors I wanted.

So I had blue, red, I had some green in there.

I'm gonna give you some cautionary tales.

Again, you can make it as dense as you want it to be.

So because I was making this big master plan, I had the cuff more dense.

If you notice I had the middle section more dense.

The band around the bottom is more dense, and you can see that the sleeve is lighter.

So I had...

It doesn't matter if you buy the silk blanks that we talked about, or you can buy it by the yard and cut it up.

But what I liked about this is it was small, controlled pieces, where it seemed to make it really easy for me.

You have a front facing on the jean jacket.

If you notice, I only did the little part that turned back.

The rest was white so that it wouldn't show through the other side.

So, kind of make a plan, decide what you wanna do, and then you're gonna grab your good old alcohol.

And I never knew this, but alcohol has different percents.

So you have to have 91%.

And I'm sure there's something magical in that process, I don't know what that is.

But what you're gonna do is spray the Sharpies.

And, I'm gonna show you some pretty cool stuff, because, I've been having fun with this for several months.

So I put a table in my house, and everyone who came into my house for the last couple months, had to draw on some silk with the Sharpies.

And even through our parties, they had to draw on silk.

And then, we let them alcohol and spray their project.

And we're just gonna let that dry, and I'm gonna show you some really interesting stuff.

First off, and you know, when we talked about that painting last... Last episode, it was... You had so much more control; with this, you don't.

You kind of have to do with what, you know, I'll show you.

For instance, you can't get black.

Like when you use a black Sharpie, and you draw, it's black, until the minute you spray it with alcohol.

And it doesn't matter what Sharpie you use.

It all goes to purple.

So, rule number one, you can't get black.

Or the black doesn't stay black.

Then, the other interesting thing is black doesn't fade like the other colors.

If you notice, these other colors just kind of mute into one another, and they really create beautiful, you know, fading of one color to another.

But after it dries, the black actually goes back to the black.

Like we have dice here that, we thought we'd sprayed enough alcohol, they went away, but after it all dried, they came back.

And whatever this person drew on this cloth, here's a little man peeking over the fence, it stayed, and we couldn't get rid of it no matter what we did.

So just heads up.

If you use black, even though it fades, like right here, it will come back exactly as you drew it.

So just, heads up, be careful.

This one, what I wanna show you, and this is fun, there's just a few things and it's so easy to do...

I wanna kind of caution you.

So we played around, I'm gonna lift this off.

(paper lifts) And we're just gonna let it sit there for a few minutes and it will dry.

So what we did is we kinda played around with where we could place it, and what we could do.

And if we sprayed it in different patterns, what kind of impact that would have.

I'm gonna let that dry off the end for a little bit.

And I wanna show you that.

So, all three of these sections were done identical, as far as the type of colors, the way the dots were done, everything was identical.

The only thing we did different is the direction of the alcohol spray, and how much alcohol we sprayed.

And I think this is just so interesting to me that that kind of thing can change it.

So if you notice, you can kind of see it once I tell you, the alcohol was sprayed from this direction.

From this direction, you can see that it was sprayed that way, and you can see it kind of moves...

This one, we saturated with alcohol.

And what you learn when you saturate it with alcohol is it goes away.

There's no, there's really no color at all.

So you just want to spray enough alcohol to where you really just get a feel for what's going on.

And then of course, you can do little colors like that where you just hold it in place and do blotting.

So this is why I say, it really isn't even close to what Betty Jean was doing and how artistic that was.

But I think what it did for me is it kinda made me realize how much fun it was, number one, and how much I wanted to do it, and how enjoyable it was.

And it only took me Sharpies, and, a little thing of alcohol, and it was very cost effective, so, just really fun.

And again, because I wanted to make a jean jacket, I had little parts and pieces, and I could control what I wanted to do.

Just think that project through, and just know that that is just way too much fun.

Okay, so we'll come back once this dries.

Because once it does dry, what you do, and it dries, you can see, very quickly, we'll just set it with the iron.

And we'll steam that, and let it go.

Okay, so the next thing I want to do is I want to show you a front facing.

So a friend of mine showed this to me years ago in Ready-to-Wear.

I had the opportunity to create patterns for a designer, and this, this was shown to me... And it, I just never turned back.

So kind of what I want to do is show you this example.

And you'll notice in a lot of Ready-to-Wear, there's beautiful piping or trimming of all kinds that come down both sides of the buttons.

And actually, when you look at it closely, what you'll see is that part of it is on one side, and part of it is on the other side, and when they merge in the middle, that's what you get.

This is a different example, but I'm going to show you some other examples where that's the case.

Let's go to the mannequins for just a minute and I'll show you exactly what's going on there.

So this is a perfect example where you see that this piping is kind of these seed beads, and the piping is on this side, this piping's on this side, so that when I button them up, you get piping down the center on both sides of the buttons.

In this case we can see, again, same thing.

And that look is really nice and ready to wear.

But even if you're not going to use piping, even if you're just making a blouse, I want to show you this front facing, because it's just a beautiful trick, it's a great thing to know, and it will make... You can do anything to any blouse pattern, and then just complete this facing and draw it in.

So I'm gonna put these tissues together and show you what it is.

You're gonna trace the neck edge of your blouse.

You're gonna trace, go in to maybe three inches wide, and completely come all the way down to the bottom.

So if you peek here underneath, you see this is just a curved edge.

All right, again, line up your blouse facing, and you're gonna add an inch and a half all the way down the front.

There's no change to that, it's just straight down.

That piece, I'm gonna take away, and that actually becomes my facing.

Now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna fold it in that fold line, and what I do when I'm doing this, is I'll do a little clip down here.

And I've kinda done this for you.

I've got a little clip at the top, and I've got a little clip at the bottom.

And what that is, is that will be my fold line.

And so I'll press it on this iron, and I'll just press it all the way down, keeping... Make sure that you keep this neck edge even.

And then what you do is you'll just fold your seam allowance underneath.

So if you add that inch and a half all the way down, you'll have a nice, little one-inch front band that comes all the way down the front of your blouse.

And the greatest part about this is, and I'm actually gonna do it in fabric here, it's a little easier to handle.

There's my blouse front.

Here's the facing.

I'm gonna put it underneath.

And that's the extra that I added.

So all you're doing is tracing, coming down to the bottom, adding that little bit.

It folds over, and closes.

So, a couple things that are positive, and you don't even probably realize it, is I've got one, two, three layers.

And those three layers, because I've got fabric there, I don't need any interfacing.

Interfacing for a blouse is really dated, and it's just not something I need anymore.

Also, I can take...

I'm using a zipper, but just because it's there, and kinda fun, I can do any kind of piping, and I can just put it right there as I go all the way down.

So, when I first start, I have come back here, and I finished this edge.

I serged it; if you don't have a serger, you can do it with something else.

Not a big deal.

But I'm gonna slip this in, and then we're gonna go to the sewing machine, and we're just gonna sew right alone this edge.

And I actually do two rows.

I do one on this edge, and then one right against where the fold is being held to the zipper.

I always do the folded edge first next to the zipper because I want to just hold that in place.

And to help you with accuracy, if you'll actually press before you sew, you'll find it's so much easier to get all those pieces right.

And I don't... Don't over-pin, don't pin crazy.

But just put a couple pins just to keep it in place.

A lot of times, I'll put a pin up here just to hold the facing in place.

So where we are is on the front of any blouse, I can create that extra additional piece that goes down.

Fold it, fold it again.

It eliminates any interfacing I need, and I can just come down and stitch two rows.

I do the same to both sides so when they overlap, I've got this beautiful trim that shows.

All right, let's go to the sewing machine, and we'll see what we can do with it.

All right, so in this case, I'm just gonna... And I'm not even gonna change my needle.

I'm gonna just leave it where it is.

Well, I'll bring it over just a little bit.

If you have a zipper foot, you can use a zipper foot, but don't feel like you need to at all.

And basically, you can use your...

The foot kind of as a guide.

So I'll put that in there, and just make sure you don't sew over the end of that trim.

In my case it's a zipper, so especially I don't want to sew over the edge.

And I'm just gonna get going.

(sewing machine whirs) So, I really should have changed out my foot on that.

But you can see that when... Because I can't really get close enough, and it's stitching farther out than I want to.

It's... Change your foot.

Make sure that you get your needle all the way next to that.

The really, the main thing that I want to show you is, that you want to do two rows.

So, that is not what I wanted.

But just do that row first to secure it in, and then come over and do the second row.

(sewing machine whirs) And come all the way down.

And that way, when you've finished, you have two rows, and those two rows are on each side, and then what it does is it makes a tab down the front.

You just want that to be straight.

But I think you understand what I'm saying.

When you wrap it around, you can put that trim in there, and it holds it beautifully, and it just looks so nice and so professional.

And again, it really changes up a blouse by being able to add that trim down the front.

Okay.

So now what we're gonna do is we're gonna make a collar.

And we're gonna look at our blouse over here on the mannequin.

Because, we've already talked about making something asymmetric.

And what we know about asymmetric is how far it goes past center front.

So if we visualize that the blouse comes up at center front, all we can see is that the collar goes past center front.

So I can measure and say oh, it's just a couple inches.

We don't ever want to go past three or four inches, we've learned that.

So I'm gonna use basically two inches.

And I'm gonna use the same collar that I've used before, same blouse, but I'm just gonna create a different collar, and just show you how easy that is.

So this is my collar pattern.

I've folded it in half, because remember that I only...

Whenever I do a collar, I put center-back on the fold so I don't need the whole thing.

It makes it much more complex to do that.

But, because I'm doing asymmetric in this particular case, I'm going to stop at center front, and just put a little extra so that I have the width that I need, and everything.

You do not need all of this.

All you need is the length of this neck edge right here.

And I'll show you what I've done.

I've kinda copied it on this paper.

This is, I've marked the shoulder, because that's on your pattern, and I've marked the neck edge, because that's also on your pattern.

And that's all I'm going to do.

Whenever I have a collar, I have the inside edge to the outside edge.

Let's go back and look at this just for one minute.

So collars are a really good thing to copy, because this inside edge is the same on this blouse as it is on that blouse.

And I know it's really hard to figure that out, but you can actually hold them together and see that those lengths are exactly the same.

What makes a difference between this collar is the outside edge is shorter, meaning this edge, so that it can't lay down on the blouse.

It's forced to stand up, and that's what we call our full-roll collar.

This one, because this neck edge, this outside edge here has been lengthened, it allows the collar to relax all the way around.

And we call that our flat collar.

It's our Peter Pan collar.

It's used in lots of apparel.

But what we're gonna do is leave that neck edge identical, and we're going to open up this outside edge, and that collar will just be able to relax.

So this is really simple to do on a blouse.

You already have the collar, you already have the neckline relationship.

All that's done; we're just gonna open that edge.

So whenever look at a collar, what you'll want to do is measure the neck edge, and then measure the outside edge so that you can see, once I have this, and you can see that it's a little longer than my original collar, because that's the part that I've extended beyond, to match how much I extended the blouse to go past center front.

And then what I'm going to do is I'm gonna cut cut cut cut cut, and I'm gonna open this up to equal the edges of my flat collar.

Now I think you... A couple little rules you'll want to remember.

You'll always want to remember to make several cuts.

If you only make two cuts, which you could get the amount, the in-between parts are not gonna be as smooth, and you won't understand really how to connect.

So I'm gonna lay this over.

And as I spread this around, and once I've obtained the length that I want to do, I can take my connection and simply draw in-between those.

So it's much easier to just draw from there to there and from there to there, than if it is drawing all the way from here to there.

So whenever I get the total outside edge that I want the collar to be, make those cuts as often as I need them to be, to really make that spread very gracious, and easy to connect the points.

So when I'm shopping and I'm looking around and I see that beautiful collar that's flat, just measure that outside edge, so I know exactly what I want my collar to be.

And eventually, when it's completely open, that collar will lay flat.

It's really fun.

With blouses, a blouse pattern only has five pieces: the bodice front, the bodice back, the collar, the facing, and the sleeve.

Those five pieces, what we call in design, is a really basic blouse.

We taught you to fit it, we taught you how to get it right, we taught you how to do all of that.

What we want to do now is recognize that it's perfect when I want to take a complex fabric.

So complex fabric and simple pattern, that's the marriage that I want.

If I get too complex, and too complex of pattern, it just cuts it up too much and I don't ever get to see the beauty of the design of the fabric.

So just be aware of that.

In this particular case, what I did is I used a bias.

And then notice the front facing, how it continued the bias, so that it really allowed that whole blouse just to flow, and really give me a beautiful blouse.

I think for blouses, for me, it's...

It's my go-to when I see just a beautiful piece of...

I think the older I get, the weirder I like things, so when I see that beautifully-weird piece of fabric, I think "That's it."

And then, keep it simple, make the blouse, and call it good.

If we look at some of these, they're just pretty, they're just... You know, they, the blouses, the fabric, there's so much going on in the fabric that everything else can easily stay simple, and that's what I want.

And they don't have to be dressy.

And blouses paired with jeans are fabulous.

There's just nothing better to me than a blouse and a pair of jeans.

And a simple blouse at that, and just a pair of jeans.

So many things we can do with turning the fabric, turning that front facing.

You can see that those are going in different directions.

It's just a lot of fun.

All right, let's go back and let's just press this.

This has dried.

It's already to go.

I'm going to just... My final thing of sealing all those Sharpies in there, are to press it.

And again, it doesn't need steam.

(steam releases) It doesn't hurt it to have steam, but it doesn't need steam.

And I will tell you, I've washed some of these samples over and over, just to kind of make sure they really didn't fade.

We talked about the tissue paper, the tissue paper did fade.

Isn't that pretty?

It's just so pretty.

And then what I can come back and do, is now I'm free to lay my little pieces on there however they want.

So I can really work around it, and do whatever I want.

The main thing I really want you to gain confidence in is that blouse, how it fits.

And not just, since you've gone through that fitting process not just use it once, but make a multitude of blouses and every time we make them, they'll just look different.

And if you're really sloppy, you can use gloves.

But if not, I think you'll be fine.

So, we're ready.

We've got all this great information, tooled in hand, we're ready to make a collar.

I will tell you, you'll be as afraid as I was.

Oh, you'll call your mom, you'll say, "Hey, will you send me a pattern?"

And the good news is, she probably won't.

And it's good for you to do it, because I do believe in the doing.

That's where the learning comes into play.

The beauty of hand-made items lies in their imperfection.

Anything perfect is machine made.

Next time, Vaughn will show you the beauty in hand-made smocking for today's fashion.

Join us right here on Fit 2 Stitch.

(light piano music) - [Narrator] Fit 2 Stitch is made possibly by: Pendelton.

Vogue Fabrics.

Bennos Buttons.

Kai Scissors.

OC Sewing.

Mike Gunther Industries.

And Sew Steady.

To order a four-DVD set of Fit 2 Stitch, Series 8, please visit our website at fit2stitch.com.