Embroidered Organza Roscoe Blouse

I've had this beautiful embroidered organza fabric in my stash for sometime now. It is rare for me to buy a fabric without a project in mind but this was one of those occasions when I fell for something and ordered a length without much thought! I originally got it from The Fabric Store; it is still in stock and comes in white too. I really love the large scale of the foliage pattern, it has real drama. The contrast of the dense embroidery and the sheer organza is really stunning.

Sitting down to sort through my stash and consider some sewing plans last month finally helped me settle on turning it into a Roscoe Blouse. I felt like the Roscoe would work nicely with the large scale of the motif as there are not a huge amount of seams breaking up the pattern and it would let the fabric be the star of the show.

I've made the Roscoe Blouse from True Bias previously and that version still gets a lot of wear. Despite that I feel it is slightly too large and overwhelming on me. I always wear it tucked in to make it better suit my proportions. For this blouse I went down a size and cut the 2 and took 4 inches off the hem. This makes it just long enough to stay comfortably tucked in to high waisted trousers but short enough that I can wear it untucked and it still suit my proportions. I also shortened the length of the slit at the centre front neckline (and the facing to match) as I ended up hand sewing up an inch or so of the neckline on my last Roscoe for modesty when the blouse shifted around.

I'm really pleased with the shape of this now. Going down a size I think has improved the fit, at least the neckline feels much neater and sits in place. This could be more to do with the more stable and structured fabric choice though. I ended up going back to my old Roscoe and taking the same amount of length off that as this one felt like such a success. I love it so much more now! 

I also hacked this pattern to include a tuck running around the sleeve. It is a detail I've seen on quite a few tops recently and I particularly love it on the Pauline Alice Coeli Blouse. It was really straightforward to achieve. I marked a line horizontally across the sleeve where I wanted the tuck to be and then folded and stitched a 1" tuck (2" on the double). I think an inch is a good depth. It actually reads much better in this fabric than I thought it might as the black embroidery looks really dense where it is folded back on itself. I didn't add anything to the length of the sleeve to do this so the sleeve has been shortened by 2" and ended up at a length I really like. 

I deliberated over how to do the facing for the slit at the centre front neckline as you were obviously going to be able to see through to it from the right side. I thought using some of the embroidered organza might look a bit messy and bulky. The fabric had a wide section of plain organza along the selvedge so I ended up cutting my facing piece from that. It disappears quite nicely and pressed crisply to create a nice neat and even border. I'm really pleased with how this looks.

I was worried about how difficult fiddly aspects like finishing that centre front slit would be in this unusual fabric but the organza was actually brilliant to work with as it was so stable, pressed really well and hardly frayed at all. The embroidery looks quite thick and bulky but I had no trouble with it, even when sewing tiny french seams which I used throughout as I didn't want to see any overlocking through the sheer fabric.

I used a length of pre-made satin bias tape from my stash to finish the neckline and cuffs. These edges are gathered up and then bound with the binding and I thought this might be quite fiddly to do and look a little messy in the semi-sheer fashion fabric. I think that touch of solid black border adds a little something to the top. The pattern instructs you to make the neck ties out of the strips you've used to finish the neckline but I opted to use a narrow black satin ribbon as it felt a little more delicate and in keeping with the top.

This fabric gives the pattern a completely different look to the soft and floppy viscose crepe I first made it in. This organza has a nylon base with rayon embroidery so it has the great bounce you'd expect from an organza without being too stiff. The gathered up gives great shape to the sleeves and I slightly wish I had made the sleeves even wider to make the most of that volume!

The Roscoe is a cracking pattern and despite being released a good few years ago is really on trend style right now. I'm so glad I've revisited it as I think it will be a good match for a number of the more unusual fabrics in my stash and is also a great canvas for hacking and adding your own details.