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.

Stylearc Melody Tunic v2

When I was looking for all the blue fabric on the Tessuti site, I saw this just-in purply-blue check  linen. 

I have decided that my personal style is on the utilitarian side, and a linen over-shirt would be something that I would wear a lot.   I tweaked the Stylearc Melody tunic to get this look.

My changes included shortening the tunic by 5 cm, straightening the side seams (though I could have slimmed them a little more) and changing the back gathers to a tuck.  I also straightened the sleeves, eliminated the elastic gathering, sewed a deepish hem on the sleeves and then folded a tuck in the sleeve hem, to mimic the tuck in the back.

The result is just what I wanted.  I did iron this shirt earlier in the day, but there is a bit of a seersucker effect through the checks and it is more crinkly than other linens.  Lucky I am okay with that :)

Well hello there!

We have upped, moved and landed in the NT, the land of year-long summer sewing.

It seems that there has been a lot going on in blog land.  A big shout out to Liza Jane, who has the best reason ever for sewing stylishly comfortable clothes.  I am sad to see that Mary Nanna has closed up shop.  She was one of my most favourite bloggers ever, and I am keeping her on my blog roll because I am secretly hoping that she will change her mind.  Amy, over at Cloth Habit, has released her first pattern, and I confess, the very first thing I did when I got the internet on was to download the pattern and make it up (well, it did take a long time for that month's worth of emails to download and her pattern is such a jiffy little number).  My version turned out fabulous, if I do say so myself, and I will share it with you sometime in the next few blog posts.  Kbenco is sewing up a storm for her daughter's formal dress and Little Betty is still churning out the garments, though personally, I am coveting her recovered chair.

My sewing machine (and other household items) arrived here sooner than I expected, so I have something to show you.  It arrived long before my car, when I was walking everywhere, even in the middle of the day.  I desperately needed more clothes that covered my shoulders and decollete, so that I wouldn't burn to a crisp with all that walking, so I started with a shirt.

The pattern was inspired by one out of a Patrones magazine.  I didn't used the Patrones pattern because I wanted to develop my own shirt block and make the pattern from that block.

Last year, I went to a workshop at Spotlight with Connie Crawford, to promote her patterns.  We tried on one of her shirts.  I wish I had taken a photo of me wearing her shirt, so I could see how well it fit once I got home.  The shirts were made out of a heavy crepe, which is a forgiving fabric, fit wise.  She told me that all I needed to do was raise the shoulder by half an inch and I could use any of her patterns.  I was a bit confused, because I thought she put me in the size bigger than my bust size, and even I could see that the seams wouldn't close at the hips.  Anyway, I bought the pattern and decided to make a muslin, starting with the pattern as-is, except for raising the shoulder.  I had just bought The Complete Photo Guide to Perfect Fitting by Sarah Veblen,  which is very good, but I found fitting myself to be an immensely frustrating process. 

For starters, the bust point appeared to be too low (which I don't remember from the fitting), so I moved that, which wasn't too hard.  Then I thought it needed to come in in the upper torso and out for the hips and there were a few other wrinkles and pulls happening.  3 muslins in and I thought I was getting close.  There was funny stuff happening at the shoulder so I made a slash there, just to see what would happen, and my whole shoulder burst through.  So then I gave up and draped myself a block on my body double.  The final version doesn't look too far off the Connie Crawford pattern, but I think I did need changes at the shoulder line which should have been made before all the other changes.  There is a little too much ease in the shoulder cap, which is okay for this fabric and style, but I will need to work on that for my next version.  I can swing my arms forward with no binding what-so-ever, which I am happy about.

The shirring on the front neck is just a pretty feature and doesn't incorporate any darting or design features.  I added some width in across the back and shirred it too, just to match in with the front.  This does make the shirt a little too billowy at the back and I am wondering if I should add another group of shirring at the small of my back.

The fabric is a beautiful cotton that I picked up in Japan on holidays 2 years ago.  Cotton fabrics there were very well priced, if you don't take the airfare into account!

I'm glad to be back in blogland, and whilst I have read much of what you have all written, I will only start commenting from this point forward...the absence of my comments does not mean that I don't think that you all are sewing fabulous stuff!  xx

The Shirt.

The shirt.  It's on all those wardrobe essentials list, mostly accompanied by the words "classic" and "white".  I can't seem to work it into my wardrobe very well.  I did want to sew one though, so that's alright.


My fabric is a Liberty print.  The pattern is Vogue 2634.

You may have to enlarge this next picture to see that the bottom bottom hole is horizontal, whilst all the others are vertical.  I have seen this done on men's shirts.  Not sure why, perhaps to anchor the other buttons in position?

 The back view.  I added back darts.

 The pattern had the option of sleeveless, short sleeves 3/4 sleeves and really long sleeves, but no wrist length sleeves.  I adjusted the length to the wrist and added a placket.  This is the first placket I have sewn.  I used some very good instructions in an Australian Stitches magazine.

See these buttons.  They cost $2 each.  I nearly felll over when the shop owner told me, but I am not spoilt for choice in sewing supply shops.  Just another reason not to sew collared shirts.  Sadly, I only checked the vertical placement of buttons and not the horizontal placement and the under-placket shows. 

You can see here that I used a contrasting fabric for the collar stand and plackets.  Only it is in a similar colourway, so this effect is subtle.

 This is how I styled it today.  Actually, it was about all I could come up with, unlike the mustard pants that I showed you on Monday that lent themselves to dozens of wardrobe combinations.

I suspect that not many women look great in a collared shirt.  All the views on runways and magazines show the shirts unbuttoned to a deep V, giving a strong vertical line that you don't get if you wear it buttoned up.  If I went out like that, it would only take moments for somebody to tell me that my buttons had come undone.  So this project was more about the process than wearing.

Like many of you, I love reading style guide books.  Earlier this year I picked up Wardrobe 101.  I compared their essentials checklist to my own wardrobe

- tailored jacket, short jacket, fitted jacket and trench coat.  Whilst I own these, I only really wear my Chanel style jacket.
- tailored pants - again, own these, rarely wear them
-wide-legged pants - tick
-jeans - tick
- the perfect skirt - tick, tick, tick
- full skirt - I'm not sure that this is an essential, outside of a bush dance or ballet concert
- collared shirt - see above
- statement top - tick
-knit sweater or cardigan - tick
-tee-shirt - tick
- day dress - I have several, but none of them is the perfect dress, still searching
- little black dress - which I do wear occasionally, but I always feel boring in black
- special occasion dress - plenty of these, but they don't leave the cupboard too often.

So it seems, I meet the list, but these are not the clothes I wear every day.  I've started my own list to work against instead.
* jersey dress, appropriate for work or somber occasions, when you need to grab an outfit in 30 seconds after you have just sat in somebody's yoghurt.  Essential that this dress does not require ironing.
* pull-on dress, no fussing required, to be grabbed on your way to answering the front door, or when you should have been somewhere 20 minutes ago.
* t-shirts, take the time to find a flattering fit
* knit tops, dressier than t-shirts, but also must not require ironing
* statement top, for all those times when people mostly only see your top half anyway.  Throw on with jeans for any occasion when you are not sure what the dress code is.  Ironing is permissible.
* cardi / scarf that is able to be rolled up into your bag
* tights / leggings, to go under all those dresses you made / bought, forgetting that you are not in your twenties anymore
* skirts / pants / shorts.  Forget the fashions,  Choose styles and lengths that flatter.  Pockets are handy but not essential.
* one dress that makes you feel gorgeous.  Matching heels.  You may need a matching bag if you don't have a bloke with pockets.
* pretty pjs
* swimmers in which you are prepared to be seen in public.  It is a lot more fun in the water than watching from the sidelines.
* cute exercise clothes.  I only exercise to help me look good and it defeats the purpose if I am wearing baggy old uglies for the duration.
* underwear that you can forget about once you have it on.  No pulling, pinching, fussing allowed.

What do you think?  Anything missing?

Men's shirt

It seems that I never have "nothing to wear" these days, which means I can spare just a little time to sew for somebody else (well, maybe just a little, not too often mind!).

The Fabric:  Shirting cotton, from Tessuti.  I was so delighted with the quality of this fabric when it arrived, that I almost kept it for myself.  Lucky for him, this colour looks terrible on me.  The fabric is a pale white / grey colour with tiny, short black lines woven through it.  He tells me that it feels great and is very comfortable to wear.

The Pattern:  I made a pattern off a Ben Sherman shirt that fits him pretty well.  I don't normallly like making patterns off clothing, but this shirt had a small grid pattern on it, which made it easy to check distances and grainlines etc.  I pinned out some fitting changes (whilst he was playing guitar...can you imagine?  Why can't men stand still for 5 minutes) and transferred these changes to the pattern and then made up a muslin.  I needed some more fitting changes to the muslin (got about 2 minutes to check these whilst he watched football).  Then there was a slight pause of about 4 months.  I was going to sew the shirt as part of the MPB men's shirt sew-along, but that was the week we lost power.  When I finally got around to starting, I couldn't remember where I was with the fitting process, so just made up the pattern as it was marked.

The Instructions:  I used David Coffin's Shirtmaking book for instructions.  Truth be known, I would have been better off using my overlocker than messing about with all those felled seams because the fabric has a tendency to fray.

The Fit:  The photograph below shows that the shirt is too wide across the chest.  Turns out this is not a fitting issue; I just folded under the wrong amount at the centre fronts.  This would also explain why I had such a hard time getting the collar stand to fit the neckline!

 

The front pattern piece shows that I narrowed the chest and raised the front shoulder (the red lines are the changes).  This raise was to accomodate a prominent front shoulder bone.

 

I'm pretty bloody impressed with how this back yoke fits.  Usually there are pull lines between the shoulder blades and drooping of the bottom yoke edges (see here for the last shirt I made him, showing these problems).  

  

To get this fit, I lengthened the centre of the yoke, without lengthening the sides of the yoke.   The neckline was also widened a little.

 

I tapered the upper edges of the back piece, essentially taking out a dart below the yoke. 

The sleeves are close fitting (unlike the "wings" sticking out from the previous shirt).   I like the shape of the sleeves but I am not happy with the fit.  There seems to be too much fabric at the back....

...which is more evident when he bends his arm.

The sleeve pattern piece shows the changes I made (I traced off a new pattern piece to add seam allowances).  The red line shows that I raised the shoulder and moved it forward a little.  I think perhaps I need to move it forward a little more and then remove some of the depth of the back curve (Any advice welcomed!). 

The details: 

Collar stays (this is the most accurate photograph of the fabric)

2 piece sleeve (back view)

Diagonal button holes (idea borrowed from Carolyn)

I have fabric for another shirt.  I'm pretty happy with this pattern, although I do need to improve the sleeve fit.  The next shirt will be a business shirt, so I will probably change the collar shape.  David Coffin's book has a selection of collar shapes to choose from.