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Well my dears, the Dove blouse sewalong has officially come to a close! I hope you enjoyed the tutorials, and that they helped you tackle some of the new techniques in this sewing pattern. Now that we’ve covered all the technical aspects of making the Dove blouse, i thought i’d share a few ideas and inspirations for creating your own unique and stylish Dove blouse, as well as how to style it in your day to day life.

There is a lot of room for cool styling with this pattern. I love pairing this blouse untucked with a pair of skinny jeans or a slim skirt, and letting the curved hem and sleeves own all the attention. It creates an instantly put together outfit.

But that doesn’t mean that tucking isn’t a great idea. There is enough length in this blouse to make it easy to tuck in to a skirt or pants, or wear layered under a dress.

Personally i like to keep the volume to a minimum in whatever garment is accompanying Dove, to really let the cuffs take centre stage.

I have had so much fun collecting all these inspiration images for Dove on Pinterest! You guys know i love taking a pattern and altering it to make something new. One of the things i’ve been really excited about with Dove is playing with variations.

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Dove is all about statement sleeves, and there is a lot of room for creating something super unique. I love the idea of changing up the cuffs for a pleated or gathered cuff! This could be as simple as cutting a rectangle of fabric and gathering it, then attaching to the sleeve instead of the included cuff pattern piece. Tapering it in at the wrist would be kind of amazing too. High on my list is adding some trim to the cuff hem, like fringe/tassels or even pom poms to play off more current trends. Another idea i’d like to try is a split cuff!

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This pattern works really well extended to a dress length as well, and if you’d like to try that yourself check out this tutorial.

The Dove blouse is intended to be sewn with light to medium weight shirting fabrics. I have personally sewn this blouse in anything from cotton voile to silk crepe to linen. It works well with all of them, but obviously has a slightly different look depending on how much drape the fabric has. If you choose a stiffer fabric like linen your blouse will have more structure, but choose a fabric with more drape such as crepe de chine will result in a flowy blouse.

Personally i tend to gravitate towards solids for this pattern, because i enjoy highlighting the style lines, but it looks just as gorgeous in prints. I’m a bit of a sucker for Liberty of London prints, and i think they are particularly well suited to this pattern due to the fabric weight and delicate designs.

I’ve seen this pattern made in large scale florals, all the way through to geometric grids, and i love how effective they all look.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed this little roundup of whats inspiring my Dove makes at the moment! Don’t forget to check out the below posts if you need a little help sewing your blouse:

• How to sew French darts
• 4 ways to sew beautiful centre front seams 
• How to sew Neckline facings 
• 3 ways to sew finish the raw edges of a facing
• How to sew flared cuffs
• How to set sleeves
• How to hem flared sleeves 
• How to sew a hemline facing

I’ve always wished I lived in the late 60’s for the fashion. I love a more bohemian look and have been loving some of the new trends that have a more modern spin on the 60’s style. I’ve been eyeing bell sleeves for awhile now and was contemplating adding them to a pattern because I wanted them so badly, so you can imagine my excitement when Megan told me about her newest pattern, the Dove Blouse. I thought a dress with bell sleeves would be so much fun, so I decided to do a little hack to extend the Dove pattern into a simple A-line dress, while still maintaining that beautiful curved hem that makes the Dove so special.

This is a fairly simple tutorial, but in order for the dress to fit you properly it’ll be important you get a few measurements along the way. Resist the urge to just follow the angle of the side seam to a longer length. That might work for some, but if you are more of a pear shape like me, that will not work. To create a dress from the Dove pattern you will need to adjust the front and back pieces, as well as create new bottom hem facings, if you choose the facing option as opposed to a rolled hem. Once you create your new pattern pieces, the garment will be sewn up just like Megan describes in the pattern instructions. So, let’s get started!

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