Dreary spring & flannels in May

Pattern: Granville shirt by SewaholicSewaholic Granville Shirt pattern

You can never have enough plaid flannel shirts, especially when you live in New England and you’ve only seen the sun once in the month of May. I’ve made this pattern about 4 times, so there is not much else to say about it specifically. You can check out my other posts on it here and here, if curious. It’s interesting to me how long it can take to finally understand something about a pattern you’ve made more than once. While I was making this shirt & another Granville at the same time, I finally realized that the “under-collar” was the part attached to the outside of the yoke. This is because it gets folder over and this part ends up underneath. It seems obvious now, but when you are just reading the directions and trying to decipher the drawings, it can get confusing as to what part is supposed to be attached to where. Hearing the word, “under-collar,” I immediately think it needs to be on the inside, not obviously thinking of how a collar is folded.

Speaking of the collar, this particular pattern has a really great tutorial on the website on how to make the collar & collar stand. This is really helpful since it’s probably the most complicated part of the shirt.

As I listen to more May showers outside, I wonder if it will ever be warm again. At least I have my many flannel shirts to keep me warm. Now that that I’ve some-what perfected it, it may be time to give the pattern a rest for now – at least with the flannel. Trying this out on some regular shirting could be a nice new challenge.

I’ve been spending this month gearing up for some summer projects and, as promised, some more sew learnings. Before typing this, Continue reading “Dreary spring & flannels in May”

Flannel shirt

The quest for perfection: or just another button-down

Pattern: Granville shirt by SewaholicSewaholic Granville Shirt pattern

Skills acquired:

  • Flat-felled arms
  • Patience

It’s gonna be different this time.

Or at least that is what I told myself when I purchased yet another 3 yards of plaid flannel. I wanted to make another flannel shirt, one that I could be proud of. I had made 2 before that were okay but had some obvious imperfections. This time I was going to do it right – I was going to practice the techniques making a muslin with some cheaper fabric and make sure I knew what I was doing before I stitched into the flannel. I used the Granville shirt pattern from Sewaholic since I had really liked the fit on the flannel shirt I attempted before. I made it a size smaller since I wanted a more fitted look and I had obviously made it too large last time.

What I really wanted to accomplish was flat-felled seams on the whole shirt. I had tried this with the first shirt, but I found it difficult when installing the arms in the arm hole. It got a bit messy. When I attempted it on the second shirt, it looked so bad that I just unpicked it and sewed them in using my serger, abandoning the whole flat-felled looked for the arms. I cheated. This time, I wanted to get it right so I asked someone I knew who had successfully done this on a flannel shirt of her own. She directed me to this online tutorial. Aha! It all made sense now.

It had been a long time since I had made a real button-down shirt, so I had to re-learn a few things, which made me glad I had this practice fabric. One of those techniques Continue reading “The quest for perfection: or just another button-down”