Tag one shirt every week
This week’s shirt is made from 1/8-inch pink gingham from Banasch’s Fabrics in Cincinnati, which I got on sale for 50% off! The material is perfect for shirting, as you’d imagine. I used the same pattern I’ve used for the past few shirts.
Well, I did make one change to my pattern, actually: I took about an inch of fullness out of the sleeve at the cuff edge, effectively turning two large cuff pleats into one medium-sized pleat. I was a little afraid to slim down the sleeve like this, but in hindsight I’m so glad I did it. Having to pleat so much sleeve material at the cuff seam was an unnecessary bit of work that I do not miss.
I’ve cut the past three or four shirts the same way, and though they all turned out pretty nicely, I think it’s time to make some more alterations to my master pattern. I’m going to take a good inch off the side seams and try to make the front neckline fit a little more comfortably. As always, I’ll report on my efforts.
I haven’t done buttonholes or hemmed the bottom yet, but this is only because I’m lazy and it’s been an unusually busy week. Once I finish this shirt, I’ll be wearing it a lot this summer.
Pre-buttonhole.
This week’s shirt is made from blue polka-dot voile from Jo-Ann, originally around $10 but on sale for 50% off. The fabric is far too lightweight for quilting, but perfect for garments. The more I worked with this fabric, the more I came to appreciate it. It’s sheer but almost completely opaque, and workable but tightly woven. Assuming it holds up well in the laundry, I’ll have found something really special here.
To my surprise, flat-felling was much easier with such quality fiber. I’ve made note of that! And the shirt is all finished. The hem is hand-rolled and the pearl buttons are ready to use. I’ll wear it tomorrow.
The photo really doesn’t do this shirt justice, but trust me, it’s really cool. And not as alarmingly patterned as the photo may lead you to believe. The fabric is some quilting-weight cotton from Jo-Ann’s, which has little red and white roses on it. I used a contrasting pink-red thread.
I finished the cuffs as rectangles, instead of rounding the corners like I usually do. This was borne from laziness, but I think it works well on this more casual shirt. I still need to get buttons! I don’t think my expensive pearl buttons would really fit on something this playful. I think I’ll get some red plastic buttons from Jo-Ann’s on my next trip.
It was fun working with such densely woven, patterned fabric, because it was more forgiving. The heavier weave made it a little easier to use my flat-felling machine foot, but just barely. Am I missing something? Shouldn’t using a machine foot to flat-fell seams be the easiest thing in the world?
I used a scrap of red fabric for the inner collar stand, which turned out to be a huge mistake. I didn’t realize until too late that the fabric was some janky poly-blend with a really gross non-stretchy weave to it. You can see how bad it looks in the photo. Good thing it will be next to my neck most of the time. I should have tested it more thoroughly before committing to it. Live and learn! I’d be a lot more upset if I’d done this on a “real” shirt, so that’s good.
I’m going to finish the hem, but I figure what’s the hurry with no buttons?
So, after several weeks of mediocre results in shirtmaking, I’ve finally arrived at something I’m really proud of. I remade my entire draft after last week’s shirt, because I was not totally satisfied, and I think my pattern is vastly improved this week.
The fabric is Kaffe Fassett’s “shot cotton”, which I got from Sew to Speak for $9/yd. It’s extremely fine, and a great pleasure to work with. I was running out of white mercerized cotton thread, so I opted for this weird light-brown cotton thread I got at Banasch’s. It’s deadstock thread—old, and very fine quality. The effect of brown thread on yellow is nice. I used plastic brownish “horn” buttons instead of pearl.
As you can see, I made the inner collar stand out of the cool polka-dot fabric from my worst-fitting shirt to date. I think it looks really nice with the yellow… there’s a silver lining here!
I snapped this picture of the wrinkly, incomplete shirt while I still had daylight, but I am happy to report that it is 100% finished, with all its buttons attached and a hand-rolled hem. I’m going to wear it tomorrow with other flame-colored clothing in honor of Pentecost.
And one more note: I’ll be out of town for the better part of the next two weeks. This afternoon I cut out all the parts for two new shirts, but I won’t have the time to construct them until the end of the month. So “one shirt every week” will be on a hiatus until then. Stay tuned!