Over the holidays, I was able to sew up a Sewaholic Belcarra blouse. I choose a pretty floral fabric and sewed the simple sleeves without the pintucks.

Materials

• 100% Pima Cotton shirting fabric
• Thread

I saw many of these blouses over the blogosphere. And since I love raglan sleeves, I just had to have it too.


Alterations

As usual with Sewaholic patterns, I made a size 6. According to the size chart, I am a size 10 in the bust/waist area and a size 8 in the hips.

I tried to make the shirt without the swayback adjustment I usually do. I figured that all the ease this pattern has would let me get away with it. Unfortunately, It was a horrible mess and the shirt kept wanting to fold in the back. So, I went back and did the adjustment. You can see in the picture below still has some pooling, but I can live with it for now. My derrière protrudes enough that I should add in back bodice darts if I want it to look better.


Honestly, for a pattern company that makes pattern for pear shapes, I am surprised at the amount of a swayback adjustment I have to do. You would think that pear shape ladies might have more going on back there.

I was also not happy with how the armholes turned out. I have a lot of excess fabric above the bust along the raglan sleeve seams. (This is the third Sewaholic pattern that I don't like the armholes on. The Alma has armholes that are too low and the Renfrew is too high.) However, because I used such a busy fabric for this shirt, I don't think anyone will notice.


I am happy with my seams. I used flat felled seams for most of the shirt to give it a clean finish.


Overall, this shirt gets a pass from me. Time will tell how much I wear it with its weird fitting issues. I guess if I wear a cardigan over it, the armholes and back will not be seen. At the same time, I was planning on making two more Belcarra blouses in different colours, but I don't think I will now. I have other raglan sleeve patterns in my stash that I can try out.