Cashmerette Club Swanton Blouse

This is the Cashmerette Swanton Blouse which was just released today as part of their Cashmerette Club, a monthly subscription that includes a fresh pattern each month. Or, at least the base is. I mashed it together with the lantern sleeves from their Vernon Shirt, but the bodice and collar are Swanton.

I’m a Cashmerette Collaborator and received a year of All Access membership in exchange for sewing this pattern and providing photos, but all opinions are my own.

When Cashmerette reached out about collaborating I was excited to try their patterns. I’ve been familiar with their patterns for a while and have had their Appleton Dress on my “sew someday” list for at several years. Although they originally started out as a pattern company just for curvier sizes, a few years back they expanded their size range to smaller sizes, but kept it geared towards curvy gals.

As a result, their base block is different than most of the others I’ve worked. I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t have to make many of my usual adjustments like shortening the waist by 1” or a swayback adjustment. I wouldn’t have expected a swayback with this style, but there are back darts so it was possible. Other than grading between sizes, I didn’t make adjustments to this at all actually. That may have had to do with my choice of sleeves which are gathered at the armscye. I usually have to take out about 1/4” at the armscye so it’ll be interesting to see if that shows up if I do a sleeveless version.

I measured at a size 4 at the shoulders with C/D cup, 6 at the waist and 8 at the hips, but after making a muslin, I decided to grade up to a size 6 at the shoulders. It’s pretty small difference between the 4 and 6, but I wanted just a little more space in the armhole. Cashmerette patterns seem to have a tighter fit around the armhole. This gives you better mobility, but I really don’t like feeling my sleeve under my armpit. This is a personal preference, but since I’m the sewist, I can fix it and the easiest way in this case was to just size up a bit. If I were doing sleeveless, I would likely go back to the 4 on top though because I do like sleeveless to be high enough at the armhole to hide my bra.

The fabric is cotton lawn from Cotton + Steel and those are actually tiny hangers on there. You might recall that I also used it for this dress. I love that the fabric looks like just another basic fabric from afar, but when you get close, you realize they’re actually tiny clothes hangers.

The pattern actually comes with 3 necklines — the mandarin collar that I used (view C), a pussybow and a necktie. I would have loved to make the pussybow version and maybe I still will eventually, but I wanted to make something that I was comfortable wearing to work. I don’t feel like I could be comfortable in something that feminine and flouncy at my technical job all day. But it would make a super cute “going out” top.

It also comes with short sleeves, but I hacked on the lantern sleeves from Cashmerette’s Vernon pattern which was a super easy hack — you can use all the same notches. Again, the short sleeves were super cute, but they were puff sleeves and I’m almost always wearing a jacket, hoodie, cardigan, etc. over my tops — unless they are long sleeved. I worried about the cute puffs getting crunched under a jacket, so again decided to go with a work-friendly version that I wouldn’t need a jacket with.

This is actually the first time I’ve ever done lantern sleeves. Combined with the neckline, it gives the whole thing almost an old timey prairie look. I’ve paired it with jeans and boots, but I also think it would look cute under a corduroy pinafore or tucked into a denim maxi skirt. Sadly, I have neither of those, so this is the option you get, but also the option I’d wear it with to work.

In addition to the gathers at the shoulder from using the lantern sleeve there are some subtle gathers at the shoulder to give it additional shaping.

There were a couple aspects that I really liked about this pattern. The first was that they had lots of notches on the princess seams. More than usual. This made it super easy to get everything lined up and avoided puckers along the princess seam which is all too common.

The second thing I liked was the covered button placket. I don’t mind the look of buttons, but sometimes you want to class it up a bit and this is a nice easy way to do it. They have you do little tacks between the buttons so it doesn’t flop open. Overall a very nice construction.

Also, all the pieces fit together great. This is what I’d expect with an established pattern company, but it’s always nice when they deliver and worth noting.