Tag: homemade shirt

Summertime and the sewing is easy

On By qplourdeIn Sewing Projects, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Pattern: McCall’s M7571, View C

I have a new favorite shirt for the summer. I found this very soft cotton shirting in my stash and it looked like I only really had enough fabric for a short sleeved shirt (especially with plaid matching). I was thinking of just making a simple button-down, but lately I’ve been really into shirts with the deeper armholes, sort of like the batwing sleeves. I have another purchased plaid shirt I wear all the time and I think I was looking for something similar. In my search for a pattern, I came across this pattern from McCall’s, and I was intrigued. It definitely was something different than just a plain blouse and I liked the wide sleeves with the cuff. I went for view C, since I was working with plaid, however I did add the sleeve tab shown on view D.

This pattern is pretty decent for beginners. The only real confusing directions I encountered was the section on attaching the sleeves. It just wasn’t super clear that these were not attached like normal sleeves, because they are meant to fold up like a cuff. The seam you are making ends up on the outside of the shirt, and it’s hidden when the cuff is folded up. None of this is really mentioned, so if you didn’t realize it, you may just sew it on like a normal sleeve. I decided to tack two ends of the cuff, so it stays folded. I’m also glad I added the button tabs as it’s one more thing to hold that cuff in place.

These are cuffs, not really sleeves, so they are sewn around the outside with the shirt inside out.
The cuff is folded up so the seam is hidden. I added the tab and button and also a few tack stitches to keep it folded.

I serged the seams, mostly out of laziness, but maybe I was just burnt out on french seams from my bird blouse. My biggest concern for this shirt was that the style would make me look like I had a big protruding stomach, but I actually think the bias plaid at the bottom has a slimming look. I think that I’ve gotten the most compliments about this shirt – or at least the most comments about how people want one for themselves. It actually didn’t take too long, even considering the neck band is slip-stitched on. People who know me, know how much I hate hand sewing, but this shirt is definitely worth it. I don’t think I could have found a better use for this fabric and I’m so glad to have another comfortable plaid shirt exclusively for summer.

I decided to wear this while testing out our new drone for the first time. I thought it would be so cool to get a drone shot of my new shirt. Unfortunately being so new to flying, we couldn’t figure out how to get a decent overhead shot.

When we were trying to get closer…the drone almost crashed into me and I had to run out of the way.

Well at least you can see the shirt here!

Something to strive for another time I guess. For now, I guess just regular photos of my new makes.

Dreary spring & flannels in May

On By qplourdeIn Sewing Projects, Uncategorized1 Comment

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” →

Dog blouse with ties

Top mistakes: My sporadic sewing

On By qplourdeIn Sewing Projects, Uncategorized1 Comment

Patterns: 

  • Rhapsody Blouse (bishop sleeves) by Love Notions
  • Vogue V8670 (view D)

This year has been pretty crazy for me so far. It started with me losing my job unexpectedly, then moved on to a big move and a new co-habitation situation with my significant other. All of this occurring while I was training hard and accomplishing my major running goals and then finally shifted to me getting a new job and trying to find some normalcy and a regular schedule for my life. With all these changes taking place in a fairly short period of time, I saw my planned and unfinished sewing projects piling up. Whenever I found myself with a pocket of free time, I would try to hurriedly work on these. Unfortunately these rushed blocks of productivity lead to some large, unplanned mistakes.

Doggone it! It’s upside down!Rhapsody blouse

I had the perfect project in mind – a garment I really wanted ready for this spring. It was one of the Rhapsody Blouse options from Love Notions. The fabric I wanted to use was this very soft, almost gauzy, cotton that had this really cute dog print pattern on it. I bought it thinking it would be cute for some kids clothes, but since I don’t have any kids, I decided I liked the material too much to not keep it for myself. I cut the project out in between packing my stuff for my move. I even attempted to make a small amount of bias tape with the leftover fabric I had (it wasn’t much), but that didn’t seem to work right. I’m not sure if the material was too stretchy, but the shape wasn’t right when I tried to use this method.

Trying to make bias tape
Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on here either. This is what happens when you attempt a new trick at the end of a long evening.

This project was actually a quick sew, so one day post move I dusted off my serger and went to work. I worked fast putting all the pieces together. When I put it up on the dummy to see my progress, that is when I noticed it…

Dog Blouse
Such a rookie mistake! I didn’t pay attention when cutting this printed fabric.

I had cut the shirt completely upside down. All the dogs were on their head.

I couldn’t believe I had made such a big mistake, but I was trying too hard to get the blouse cut out before the big move. Since I hadn’t done a project with a real print in awhile, it didn’t even cross my mind to make sure this was right. I was concentrating too hard on making sure I could fit all the pattern pieces and that I had measured the right size for me. Oh well, at this point I was still going to finish the blouse. It would just be a bit quirky.

Sleeves on dog blouse
One good point is that because I chose the elastic sleeves, it tends to hide some imperfections that exist in the sleeve hem.

Luckily the rest of the construction went very well, even making the bias tape, which I was also a bit rusty at. In the end, I had a nice spring blouse…although it was now summer and too hot to wear it. It’s still light enough to wear on a cool summer evening…and there is always next year.

Dog Blouse

What the…buttons?

The next project I attempted was a solid color fabric so there Continue reading “Top mistakes: My sporadic sewing” →

The flannel shirt A/B test

On By qplourdeIn Sewing Projects, Uncategorized4 Comments

Pattern: Grainline Studio Archer shirt

A/B testing is kind of my thing.  I did this a lot at my former job and it’s always exciting to me when I get real results from an idea or theory.  I’m a total nerd for data.  Back when I was just toying with the idea of making a flannel shirt I had bought two different independent shirt patterns and couldn’t decide which one to use.

Sewaholic VS Grainline

I did some initial reading up on both patterns, and made the decision to start with the Sewaholic Granville shirt because the pattern was designed for pear-shaped bodies (like mine).  I liked the result, shown in my previous post, but I couldn’t help but wonder how the shirt would look using the other pattern.  Well, the only way to know for sure is to test it out.

Hypothesis: The Sewaholic Granville shirt pattern is the better pattern for making a plaid flannel shirt

Now this obviously cannot be a real A/B test since there are a lot of factors in this test that make it imperfect and not scientific.  We all know that the first attempt at something has the most learning curve and so some techniques that were new to me when making the Granville shirt, were more familiar when making the Archer shirt.  Also the material I used for the Archer shirt was a lot cheaper, in price and quality, so the overall result would be slightly different no matter what.  There is no way to hold all conditions equal for this experiment, but I decided to still test out the following parameters:

  • Ease of pattern directions
  • Garment details
  • Overall fit and look

Ease of Pattern Directions

Both patterns have clear directions that could help anyone making their first button-down shirt.  The drawings are all well done and precise.  I did find it strange that the Grainline pattern didn’t specify which drawing referred to the interfacing cutting layout.  There is Continue reading “The flannel shirt A/B test” →

Waffle Knit: It’s not just for breakfast anymore

On By qplourdeIn Sewing Projects, Uncategorized1 Comment

Pattern: Sewaholic Renfrew topRenfrew

What do you do with mis-matched fabric?

I bought this fabric a while back because I really liked the waffle-like knit texture it had.  It reminded me of one of my favorite winter shirts.  One that now has a giant hole in it – probably from over-wear.   However, when I brought the fabric up to the register, I noticed the colors were off.  There was a whole section that was missing one of the colors.  The fabric was so soft and perfect for a thermal shirt I wanted to make, that I negotiated a price reduction and bought it anyway.  It would be at least be good to make as a muslin, right?

discolored fabric

I was able to cut out the front and back out from the fully colored section, but I had to cut the arms out on the faded Continue reading “Waffle Knit: It’s not just for breakfast anymore” →

Plaid fabric

Summer sleeves…make me feel fine

On By qplourdeIn Sewing Projects7 Comments

Pattern: New Look 6104 (view D)New Look 6104

While I was in the middle of trying to finish up my cold weather projects that got away from me last season, I realized I would always be a season behind if I didn’t get working on some summer clothes.  So I dropped everything and whipped up this little shirt, made from fabric I got for $1.99 a yard at Sewfisticated in Framingham, MA.

Plaid fabric

When I bought this, I had a vision of making a sleeveless shirt. This New Look pattern that I had already made a muslin from seemed perfect, especially with the tucks in the front and the collar-less design.

Based on my experience from last time, I cut the neckline a bit smaller to compensate for my small shoulders and cut the bottom part a little fuller.  It could probably use more adjustment next time – with the bottom more flared out and the middle part taken it a bit at the waist.   Continue reading “Summer sleeves…make me feel fine” →