Farrah Blouse and Dress by Chalk and Notch

I’m so happy to share with you today a top I’ve been working on for the past couple weeks. I got to be a tester for the new Farrah pattern by Chalk and Notch!

I’ve written before about how much I love the format of Gabriela’s patterns.  They are very professional and easy to follow.  Every page has a clickable table of contents across the top, making it so easy to find the information you need. This blouse and dress features ruffles as you like it.  Do you like them horizontal or vertical? This pattern has it.

The Farrah pattern is great for woven fabrics, especially lightweight ones with lots of drape. Perfect for summer.

I made view B with the ruffles across the front. View A has ruffles on the sides.

I have to admit, this pattern was harder than I thought it would be. Not that that’s a bad thing…I’m actually happy about that because my goal this year is to improve my sewing skills and the only way to improve is by trying new things, right?

What was hard about it? For one, the gusset. I’ve never sewed anything with a gusset before.  For both tops that I made, I had to get out the seam ripper when it came to the gusset.  For some reason on my second top, the gusset was a little too big and I had to cheat and cut it down a bit.  The first one went in perfectly.

The second thing that was hard was trying to sew a hem and a mitered corner with the rayon challis and voile that I used.  So, I turned to my secret weapon: my serger.  There is this handy book that came with my serger that has all the settings for fancy little tricks like gathering, hemming napkins, even making lingerie. So I whipped it out and used a tiny rolled hem to for my ruffle and blouse hem. It’s actually really easy! Remove the stitch finger and and left needle thread. That’s it! Those are the only changes to my settings. Goodbye tiny folds on slippery fabric…

I made a size 6 with no changes or asjustments and I love the way it fit.

This floral fabric is Joel Dewberry’s Blockprint Blossom Voile in Peach (not a typo…there’s no peach color in this fabric, it’s teal…so???).  I love this teal color! The voile is very lightweight, so perfect for summer and doesn’t wrinkle too noticably.  I got it from Hawthorne Threads.

I also made a coral version in rayon challis from Cali Fabrics.  Hello wrinkles! I love the color and the drape, but not the wrinkles… Next time I want to try rayon challis, I might go with a print so the wrinkles aren’t so obvious.

I definitely want to try the dress version of this top and maybe view A with the ruffles along the sides. I’m not a big ruffles person but with a fabric with a nice drape, I think it would look great.

If you think you’d like to make the Farrah pattern, head on over to Chalk and Notch and check it out. Also, check out all the other amazing tester photos on Gabriela’s blog so you can see the other versions of the blouse and dress, plus get more fabric ideas.

Be sure to tag me on Instagram and show me your makes! I’d love to see them.

Happy sewing!