Present Joys

The last shirt of the summer, made from a 100% linen fabric I got on sale at Sew to Speak in Clintonville. It’s very good quality stuff, extremely springy and lineny. It was also a giant pain to work with: all the areas where I had to match stripes, like the sleeve plackets, had to be carefully basted by hand before they could be stitched together. But I think it was worth the extra work. The fabric itself was woven with stripes running not parallel with the selvage, as with most fabrics, but perpendicular to it. As you can see, this meant that all the stripes on this shirt run 90° to the way they’d be on a “normal” striped shirt. This presented an unusual challenge.

As you can see, there is no attached collar. The collar band has buttonholes on both ends so I can wear a separate collar attached with studs. I’ve got a couple white cotton collars in my closet I made a few years ago that fit pretty well, and I plan to make a few more detachable collars from what remains of the linen stuff. Perhaps on labor day.

Having no attached collar means this shirt’s neckband will always need to be fastened. So I figured I’d play up the formality aspect and make french cuffs instead of the usual barrel ones. I don’t particularly like french cuffs, but I enjoy wearing cufflinks every now and then, and I thought this exceptional fabric would look nice with fancier cuffs. There is no breast pocket, because this is a dress shirt, in the true sense of the term.

I’m taking my vacation this very last week of summer before school starts, so this shirt concludes my one shirt every week project! It’s been a really fun and educational summer! I feel much more confident in my shirtmaking abilities. I also feel good for having documented my work every single week. Thanks for following along with my adventures!

Another overshirt, from heavy 100%-cotton flannel from Jo-Ann’s! I cut this along the same lines as my corduroy one, only a little longer and with less-extreme collar points.

Not a lot to say here: simple, continuous sleeve plackets made with selvage-cut pieces of fabric; just one breast pocket, because pattern matching is a huge pain in the butt with this stuff. Speaking of pattern matching, though: you can’t see it from this photo, but the plaid of the yoke, collar stand, and collar all match almost exactly. I’m proud of that. And I love the way the plaid sits on the collar points. This is a really fun shirt.

This week I made a shirt from heavy, wide-wale cotton corduroy from Jo-Ann Fabrics. It was a wildly different project from my previous stuff, since the fabric is very thick.

Except for the addition more fulness to the lower sleeve and cuff area, I didn’t modify my usual pattern at all to cut this shirt. I used an odd piece of printed cotton for the inner yoke, since I wasn’t sure about doing two layers of the heavy cord. Instead of flat-felling the scye and side seams, I just serged them. This was, as you can imagine, an extremely enjoyable change of pace. Oh, and as you can see, the bottom of the shirt is cut straight across, with a sturdy ½” hem.

Finished, with buttons! Can’t wait until it’s cold enough to wear this!

The last of the gingham! This time a red 1/8-inch weave, also from Banasch’s Fabrics. It’s the same as the pink stuff from two weeks ago. As I said, I prefer the larger ¼-inch gingham, but this stuff is pretty nice too. I used a scrap of yellow stuff from a previous shirt for the inner collar stand, which I think contrasts nicely with the red.

I initially made up the shirt fronts like a woman’s blouse, that is, right-over-left instead of left-over-right. By some fluke, I didn’t notice this obvious mistake until I’d already made up the collar stand and trimmed seam allowances! yikes! I ended up taking off the collar stand, correcting the fronts, and very gingerly sewing a new stand back onto the neckline. And it worked perfectly. No harm done, except for a few yards of wasted mercerized cotton thread.

This shirt is nearly identical to last week’s, even the collar, which is a tall, very moderate spread. This is a solid pattern that I think I’ll stick with for the remainder of the summer.

I’m tired of gingham! Next week I’m doing something really different. Stay tuned.

This week’s shirt is made from a ¼-inch blue gingham from Banasch’s fabrics. I originally thought the larger-size gingham would be more difficult to work with, but in the end I think I prefer it to the smaller stuff.

I don’t have much to say about this project, except that’s it’s as close to an ideal shirt as I’ve ever got. I cut down my pattern substantially (removing about 1” total from the armscye, and ½” from each side), but all changes were well-planned and thus work well. The fit of this slightly slimmer pattern is surprisingly good: I think I’ve really got something great here!

Construction of this shirt went off very smoothly, and I had a great time working with the fabric. Feeling very good. Next week: more gingham. Stay tuned, friends.