Ikat Belcarra
Things on the knitting front are still slow due to my tendon injury, so I’ve been compensating by sewing and project planning.
A recent make is the Sewaholic Belcarra Blouse in an unexpected light yarn-dyed cotton Ikat I found at the local fabric shop in town. I’d purchased this pattern last year in a moment of impulse but have been trying to figure out how to make it work with my own wardrobe as I don’t tend to like wearing things that are tailored at the waist, due to a steadily growing middle-age muffin top. ;-P
As I just wanted a simple shift top with the little bit of detail with the pintucks, I decided the pattern as published needed some alterations. My changes:
- No waist shaping – I just straightened the line of the pattern from the armpit to the size I needed at the waist.
- No cuffs- I used bias binding around neck and arms instead of facing – this left the neck a bit large, but I can always make this smaller on future versions.
- I did a wide binding at the neck and triple stitched, just because I wanted to try it out, and also added a wider hem as I wanted it a bit shorter and used a wide hem on my Fancy Tiger Sailor Top and really liked the effect.
I see they have the same fabric at The Cloth House in London for £22/m, but got mine for £14/m and managed to squeeze this out of 0.75m x 114cm fabric, so it is worth checking around. I bought mine at ThimbleIna’s in Hastings, so you could contact them by email as it isn’t online.
I used bias from my stash instead of making it from the cloth. As a result of squeezing this in I couldn’t focus on pattern matching, but oddly enough the lines kind of match up anyway! Here are some details of the make – click on the thumbnail for a larger view:
The top works well with my new Named Alexandria Peg Trousers (which I LOVE – more on those at a later date) as well! But unfortunately the weather has turned since this photo and it is only good for layering for the winter! Oh well. 
