In the end, my Love Notions Chorus drape-neck blouse looks pretty nice, but I found it to be a rather frustrating pattern to sew, in part because the pattern doesn’t include very detailed instructions, and in part because it seems to be especially problematic for small sizes. The pattern has a variety of options, including shallow and deep drapes in the front and back or a plain back, plus it can be a top or a dress and have a variety of sleeves or not. I decided to make a plain back, deep drape front sleeveless blouse in size small out of a yard of slate blue ITY from my stash. I initially cut out the pattern as drafted, except I shortened the front by 2.5 inches and removed the side vents.

I had read the Love Notions Facebook group and had seen some complaints about the deep drape being too deep in small sizes and for short people (I’m 5’2″), so I cut the deep drape and basted it together just enough to be able to test it. Sure enough, the drape was too deep on me. If I positioned it just right it looked great, but if I moved the drape shifted and revealed my bra. I took a photo of the problem and posted it to the Facebook group, and within minutes I received suggestions for fixing the problem. Some suggested workarounds such as taping the drape to my bra or adding boning to keep the drape centered. However, there were also some marked up diagrams of how to adjust the pattern.

Inspired by those diagrams, I looked at the pattern again and realized that I could align the shallow and deep drape and see where they differed. I then drew a new cut line between the shallow and deep drape lines. While I was at it, I fixed another problem I had observed: the seam where the back facing and front drape line up at the shoulder didn’t quite match because the back facing edge was slightly longer. I thought it might be easier to get the shoulder and back facing to lie flat if everything lined up. So I adjusted my new cut line to be the right length to match the shoulder seam. You can see here the outline of the deep-drape front in blue, the shallow-drape front in green, and my new cut line in red.

I unpicked the shoulder seams, recut the top of the drape based on the new red line I drew on the pattern, and sewed it back together. This time the drape was just right. Although the pattern doesn’t call for it, I put a few stitches in the outer shoulder edges to hold the facing in place.

Next I started working on the arm hole binding. This is a point in the instructions were more details and a photo or two would be helpful. I wasn’t sure whether to sew the binding on with a stretch stitch, straight stitch, or surger. After consulting with the Facebook group, I used a stretch stitch to sew one of the bindings, but was not happy with it so I unpicked it and tried again. After much futzing I ended up flipping the binding to the inside instead of using the wrap around binding the pattern calls for. I did not execute it all that well on the first side, but it came out better on the second, but still more puckered than I would like. I suspect my binding might be a bit too short for the size of the arm holes.

Once the arm holes were bound I tried the blouse on and found that the back facing kept rolling up and sticking out the back of the neck, despite being understitched. I tried top stitching close to the edge, which helped some, but not enough. I added another row of top stitching 5/8-inch from the edge and pressed, the seam, which ended up being a lot better.

Finally, I hemmed the top and here it is! Overall I like it and if I make another one it should be a pretty quick project. I might try one with sleeves instead of arm bindings, or if I try another one with bindings I will probably try adding about half an inch to the length of the bindings so the bindings do not have to stretch as much. I might also try adding some shaping to the waist. I think a shorter facing, and possibly even a binding for the back neck would work better too. You can see in the back photo that the outline of the ITY facing.

Photos above with Pattern Emporium Urban Boldly mashup pants in seafoam LiKnit.