Liberty Wiltshire Top

Lucy has made this beautiful blouse for her mum using Wiltshire E – a gorgeous Liberty Tana Lawn® classic. Lucy talks about her make below.

“It seems to be a weird and wonderful thing about Liberty fabrics that sometimes you can look at a print which you have seen countless times before and all of a sudden it’s like seeing it for the first time!  Wiltshire is a classic Liberty print which really needs no introduction.  It’s a print I come across all the time in the production studio at Alice Caroline but a few weeks ago, when I was unwinding a bolt of Wiltshire E, I was struck by its gorgeous design all over again. I particularly love this colour way with all its soft, overlaid lilacs and blues.  It’s just crying out to be paired with denim, which is always a good thing in my book! And then I remembered that my mum has a pair of purple coloured trousers which I had persuaded her to buy for herself.  I feel slightly guilty about this, as it can be a bold colour to rock, but now her birthday was looming so I decided to make her a blouse to go with them as a gift!”

“I already had a pattern (Burda 6632) which I have used a few times before with various tweaks. This time around I decided to lose the centre front placket by cutting the front as one piece on the fold (remembering to place the pattern piece a short distance away from the fold line to make up for losing the width of the placket). 

I also decided that mum would probably like a frilled neckline, I mean, who wouldn’t? So, I rounded the neckline when cutting out the front and added a notch in the centre. This meant that I also had to cut 2 front facing pieces to match this neckline shape.” 

“It can feel a bit daunting sometimes to alter a pattern, but I often find that it can be really helpful to double check shapes and measurements against existing items of clothing that you already have, so that you can feel more confident about how the finished shape will actually look. Sometimes even the smallest alterations (eg sleeve length or fullness) can make all the difference between a finished garment that you love or one that you just never quite get along with.”

“I’m very pleased to say that I managed to finish this top just in time for my mum’s birthday (woop woop!) and that she was over the moon with it.  In fact so much so that she changed into it there and then, as by sheer chance she happened to be wearing those purple trousers…she looked fabulous!  It was a match made in heaven.”