Present Joys

It’s been two weeks since my last shirtmaking post, mostly because I had some trouble with my patterns which took time to resolve. More on that later. The first shirt here is a seersucker “fun shirt”—something I’ve wanted to make for a while now. I used leftover grey seersucker from the shirt I made a few weeks ago, along with 1.5 yards each of red and green seersucker from Jo-Ann’s. I had no idea how much fabric to buy since I knew I’d be using three different colors instead of just one piece—turns out, I probably could have gone with just 1 yard each. The shirt is a popover, i.e, it’s got a front placket like a polo shirt that’s about 11″ long.

Fit-wise, trying to make a popover was tough enough—I shouldn’t have complicated it by using seersucker, which is notoriously stretchy and difficult to measure. The shirt turned out alright, but the center front. Cutting a popover really showed me that my pattern wasn’t as good as it could be, especially around the neckline. After this realization, I spent almost a whole week just working on a new pattern. I went back to my favorite shirt draft and drew everything out from scratch. You can’t really tell, but I dramatically altered both the neckline shape and the armscye. On my old pattern, the armscye was 21″ around—on my new pattern, it’s only 18″. It takes a little longer to put on my new shirt pattern, but the higher armhole means it fits better and gives me more flexibility. I cut three new shirts from my new, improved pattern.

There’s a short-sleeved shirt in red, white, pink, and cool grey fabric from Sew to Speak. I thought the colors looked very nice for summertime, which is ironic because the fabric itself has scarves on it. Nothing too special; just a better fit!

I also made a long-sleeved shirt out of Kaffe Fassett “shot cotton” from Sew to Speak. The fabric is wild and glorious—it’s as light as a feather, yet perfectly opaque, and it’s brilliantly-colored. I used bright yellow cotton thread to do all the stitching, instead of the typical white, and I think it gives the shirt a little character. The sleeves are gathered into the cuffs, a technique I still really enjoy.

Finally, I made a casual shirt out of grey fabric with foxes on it, again from Sew to Speak. It’s got a straight hem instead of shirt tails, designed to be worn untucked! It’s some of the coolest fabric I’ve ever seen.