The Perfect Peasant Blouse

I've had this vintage dirndl dress for ages, but I hadn't worn it because I could never find the right blouse to style it with. Dirndls are designed to be worn with blouses (and often aprons too--there's actually a little clip on the front of mine where an apron is meant to go), but when you buy vintage ones the original set has been broken into separate pieces so you typically only get the dress. The way they're cut makes them virtually impossible to wear without a blouse unless you do some alterations, which I wasn't interested in doing to this dress, but none of my white blouses (and I do have several) fit the style of the dress. Most of mine are very high-necked or buttoned blouses, which doesn't look quite right with a dirndl. So when I saw Miss Patina's new Isadora top I got quite excited because it looked like the perfect piece for all the "cottagecore" layering I'm coveting this summer. It's a crop top which I personally wouldn't pair with trousers, on the rare occasion I do wear trousers, but it's the perfect length for tucking into high waisted skirts or styling underneath pinafore dresses and dirndls like this one. I love the lace detailing along the neckline and the full sleeves. How lovely are the flowers in these pictures? This flower is called fireweed or willow herb. It likes to grow in disturbed ground and seems to be blooming in all the forests near us. Usually it's a smaller patch of a dozen plants or so, but this area had such a large spread of fireweed it almost looks like a field of pink. I plucked a few flowers to make a flower crown with and I'm sharing the tutorial for how I make flower crowns with my patrons today. There's more than a hundred exclusive posts on topics like this one (I also recently shared a recipe for elderflower cordial) on my Patreon. You can become a patron by clicking here. And fireweed is apparently edible, so now I'm tempted to return to this patch to forage some more flowers for fireweed jelly. Doesn't the name of that sound so fun? I want to try fireweed jelly just because of the way it sounds!