The making of a Sassy Librarian (Blouse that is)

I am having so much fun taking my new Craftsy class.  It's called 'The Sassy Librarian Blouse' and was a gift from my DDIL.  At first I felt intimidated by printing and taping and cutting out the pattern, but it wasn't actually as bad as I had built up in my mind.

After staring for a day at the stack of printed pages, I jumped in!  It took a while, but I started by laying out the first four pages in a row, lining up the numbers and arrows.

Then acting on the advice of the instructor, I trimmed the border of one side to make it easier to accurately match the arrows and lines.

Sometimes 2 sides had to be trimmed to match up more easily.

This process took me all of one afternoon, and monopolized our large dining room table.  But in the end I had a paper pattern all trimmed out in the size I need for my blouse.

Then came the adventure of making a muslin mock up to make sure it would fit before I actually cut into the 'real' fabric.  I only needed to cut out the front and back to see if the fit was right for me.  I put in the darts and sewed the side seams together.

It seems to fit perfectly with one minor adjustment. I had to let the side seem out at the bottom about 3/4 of an inch.  I unpicked about 4 inches and think I will add paper to the pattern angling down from the 4" mark adding 3/4" to the bottom on each side.  Keeping the 5/8" seam allowance, that should be just right!

So now I'm ready to add to the paper pattern and cut out the real blouse fabric!

Are you taking this class?  Please share your challenges and solutions with me in the comments.