Safari by Burda

I would like to make a tag for this shirt that says "Please admire". It seems that I have less time than ever to sew, and I learnt a few new techniques for this shirt, so all up, it took me almost a month to sew. It was a lot of effort. I'm pleased it's over.



The pattern was from Burda World of Fashion, 4/2006. I made it in beautiful shirting cotton from Fine Wools Direct. I used wooden buttons from Spotlight.

I read David Coffin's book on Shirtmaking, from cover to cover, then I started sewing. My favourite new technique was the method to do the side seams. I'm not sure if it is a felled seam, a flat-felled seam, a mock felled seam or something else again, but it looks quite neat. The photo below, if you can see it on your screen, shows both the inside and outside of this seam. I sewed the sides right sides together, with one seam allowance 1/8" and the other 1/4", and then used my narrow hemming foot to turn under and stitch down the wider seam allowance on top of the other one. David's book was written in inches, and I am used to metric, but after examining my sewing machine's feet, I decided that it was really built to be used in inches, so to help out with accuracy (not my strength) I worked in inches.

I used David's instructions to sew the collar and band. They don't look as good as the Burda photo, but I hope they look a lot better than if I just sat down and sewed without all that stretching and pressing. I guess I'll never find out.