Coffee & Thread Nina Blouse Blog Tour

Welcome to the Nina Blouse Blog Tour for Coffee & Thread Patterns! I love Coffee & Thread Pattern’s classic style and I shared my Ila dress last year as part of their pattern tour. Claudia of @fr.love recently asked me if I’d like to join the Nina Blouse Tour and I jumped at the chance.

I’m really busy at the moment working and being a Mum, so I have to be careful not to say yes to too many projects, but it is a constant battle! So many tours and pattern tests tempt me constantly! So now I only say yes

• if I can fit it in,
• if it is super awesome
• and if it is something I am “missing” from my pattern library.

In the hundreds of patterns I own, I do not have a woven girls blouse, can you believe that? I am happy to say we have now rectified that!

The Nina Blouse comes with a sweet retro vibe and three sleeves choices: cap sleeves (regular and scalloped) and long sleeves. I chose the regular cap sleeves for my version.

The shoulders have three decorative tucks. The pattern also offers two different collar options: a classic Peter Pan collar and a scalloped collar. I chose to use the simple Peter Pan collar. My girl is a fan of simple and so I thought we’d start there. There is the option of a neck tie or bow as well, which is just adorable!

Nina covers sizes 12 months through 12 years and is best sewn from lightweight to midweight woven fabrics such as voile, lawn, rayon, double gauze, linen, poplin or quilting cotton. I used this gorgeous Cloud 9 ‘Block Party’ Hexagon Honeycomb Voile. It is  a gorgeous light weight organic cotton fabric and I found it in a remnant bin for $2 a metre! It was just barely enough to make this blouse, but not quite enough for the collar. A simple white collar is a nice fix for that though!

I used kam snaps for my closures rather than buttons and buttonholes. I love how fast snaps are to add to a garment. I was tossing up between white and this duck egg blue colour for a while, but I felt like this blue blended better than a bright white would have.

My kids had been at their athletics carnival for school, so I didn’t keep her out too long for pictures this day. She was a little sun-kissed and completely exhausted after a day of running races and field events.

If you have read this far, your prize is a discount code!

20% off with the code NINAPATTERNTOUR

good through 03/19, 11:59 pm Central (Chicago) time zone at http://coffeeandthread.bigcartel.com/