When bad things happen to good fabric

 

Linen twill is a new fabric for me.  I must confess I was excited when I saw it on the Tessuti website and clicked "Add to bag" pretty quickly.  When it arrived, it was even more luscious than I imagined.  I washed and dried it, and then my daughter laughed when she found it draped over me whilst I was watching tv.  It really has a lovely drape.

I decided on the Stylearc Lennie overshirt.  

I started with the popover placket.  Instead of following the instructions, I decided to do it the same way I would sew a placket on a shirt sleeve.  Only, I must have got the dimensions mixed up when I was cutting the placket, because after I sewed it on, the top didn't sit neatly over the underneath.  I unpicked it, and followed the method given.  Something went wrong there, not sure if it was Stylearc or my seam allowances or turn of cloth, but the upper still didn't sit neatly over the underneath.  More unpicking.  Not great for a linen twill.  You can see the fabric giving way in the photo below.

I would need wider plackets to get them to lay on top of each other.  I had enough fabric to cut new ones, but that would leave me with a not so useful remnant piece, so I decided to add to the existing plackets.  I seamed some pieces together to make new plackets, as you can see in the photo below, with the outsides of the plackets being on the bias and the inside on the straight grain..

Third time around, I got the placket in, but you can see that I had to stabilise the area with interfacing.  Not sure how long this shirt will last before fraying.  

I thought that I pattern matched the side seams, but when I sewed them together, it would appear that something went wrong there too.  I shortened the top quite a bit.  The shirt is oversized, but it still had bust darts.  I should have eliminated the darts.  I ended up extending them, because they didn't come anywhere near my bust and so seemed pointless (pun not intended...ha!).

I added a pleat below the back yoke, for added movement.

I bought this same fabric in the other colourways, but think that I will choose a different pattern for the others.