Present Joys

Day 13: tue, 17 sep 2013. Anna and Julia are scared of my loud floral trousers.

The last three shirts of the summer. I actually finished these several weeks ago, but I’ve been so busy with other. In the interest of completeness, here they finally are! Visually, these aren’t too exciting. Especially because they look very wrinkly in these photos. But they’re probably the three best-fitting shirts I’ve made yet—and that’s the goal! Two of these shirts are made from Kaffe Fasett’s shot cotton, one in periwinkle and one in crimson. The other is a slightly heavier cotton-print polka dot—my first polka dot shirt. All three are from Sew to Speak.

All three of these shirts are practical, good things to have in my wardrobe, and I’m looking forward to wearing them a lot this fall. I’ve already made good use of the bright red one by wearing it as part of a cowboy costume for Vacation Bible School! It has the most exaggerated spearpoint collar I’ve ever made. But I’m becoming quite comfortable in spearpoint collars so it’s not a big deal!

I finished these shirts in early july. Since then, I’ve been tailoring a coat completely by hand. Though it is very rewarding, it’s been taking a lot of time. I’m almost finished with it, and will have it done in time to go back to school on monday. Photos to come shortly.

Thanks to everyone who’s been following along with my sewing adventures this summer! Here’s to making even more things in the future.

Last week, I made a special father’s day shirt for my dad, who is a very serious guitar player! I cut this shirt from a new pattern based on my existing pattern, one of my dad’s existing shirts, and some direct measurements. He wanted a very easy-fitting shirt. The fit isn’t perfect (I should say there are minor “lateral balance problems”), but it’s cool and he was happy with it. Overall a success! And it’s always good to remember why I have a policy of not making clothes for other people—too stressful!

I made one other shirt for myself this week, in a blue-green soft chambray. The fabric is the same as the orange stuff I used a few weeks ago, however, the cut is much better and truer. I gave this shirt a more “normal” collar shape, that is, not spearpoint-shaped. I pleated the sleeves into the cuffs. The most exciting thing about this shirt is the color; it’s this wild blue-green. The warp is a cool, purple-blue and the weft is a warm green-blue; combined, they make a very intriguing robin’s-egg color. How will I ever be able to accessorize this?!

I ran out of pearl shirt buttons after I finished my dad’s guitar shirt. I’m planning a trip to Cincinnati in a few weeks, where I’ll be able to get some more deadstock pearl shirt buttons at Banasch’s. Until then, anything I make will have to do without buttons until then!

I wasn’t planning to make more shirts this week, but after a trip to Jo-Ann Fabrics on monday, I got excited to use some new stuff. I ended up with three shirts.

The first one is a generic short-sleeved shirt in red, white, and blue seersucker plaid. I didn’t use any interfacing in the collar! I put plastic buttons on it, in contrast to the usual. It’s fun!

The second shirt is really lame, made from “Lisette”-brand fabric on sale at Jo-Ann. I managed to make this shirt with 1.8 yards, which is a pretty good feat. But the shirt itself isn’t good. The fabric is too sheer; it was a pain to work with, and not in a good way. The pattern is cool and interesting from close-up, but from far away it looks muddy and gross. I don’t know how much I’ll end up wearing this one. But it was a good learning experience.

I’m really proud of this week’s last shirt, which is a long-sleeved shirt with barrel cuffs and gathered sleeves made from really beautiful white-and-grey cotton seersucker. It feels great, fits great, and looks really nice. The best part is the collar, which I cut perpendicular to the normal way. The grey stripes were so compelling that I really wanted to highlight them. Cutting the stripes this way helped make them more dominant! I think it turned out really well.

Currently I’m about halfway done with a short-sleeved “fun shirt”, so that ought to be done for next weekend’s roundup. Beyond that, who knows?

I’ve been out of school for just over a week now—and I’m proud to say I’ve been busy with my time this past week. Some background information: last year at this time, I’d only made about five shirts and my production skills were severely lacking. So all last summer, I made one shirt every week (and I wrote about it online), in an effort to improve both my technical skill and the accuracy of my patterns. I think I did both! This past saturday was my first time making a shirt since last august. Surprisingly, I was able to work much faster than I had last summer. And construction is easier! Practice makes perfect. I made three shirts this week:

The first shirt is a tangerine chambray. (I made a very similar shirt exactly a year ago… I love this sort of fabric.) I used my pattern from june 2011, which is slightly loose-fitting. I wanted to make a 1940s-style shirt: blousy, with a spearpoint collar and loose-fitting sleeves. I think I overdid the spearpoint thing—the collar points are 4.5″ long! This is the kind of collar that will look great with a tie and a collar pin, but it’s just too big by itself. In another attempt to give this shirt a golden-era feel, I gathered the sleeves into the cuffs instead of using pleats as is usually done. The gathers mean the sleeve’s fullness is evenly-distributed around the cuff, instead of being all lumped near the sleeve placket. It’s a subtle effect but it’s pretty neat-looking. I will probably continue to use this technique.

The second shirt is an awesome feather print from Sew to Speak. The fabric isn’t really designed for garment use, so it feels a little stiff. I’m hoping it will soften up after launderings. I loved this fabric as soon as I saw it, and I’d been hoping to make a shirt out of it for months now. This is the first short-sleeved shirt I’ve ever made; I figured the wild fabric would work better in short-sleeved form. In the end, I think making this short-sleeved just makes it look like a Hawaiian shirt (which was not my intention). I’ve just got to be very careful to keep it tucked in. Regardless, I’m happy with it. I still love the print. And the sleeves are hemmed with 3″ of extra fabric so I can roll up the sleeves without the wrong side showing. It’s fun.

The third shirt was cut from my july 2011 pattern, which is slimmer. The fabric is a wild, lightweight cotton twill I bought at Jo-Ann Fabrics last fall. It looks really cool close-up, but unfortunately, from far away, it looks a lot like puke. I’d originally planned to make this shirt with french cuffs and a detachable collar band. But then I realized that I really don’t like wearing french cuffs, so I didn’t make them. In hindsight, I’m glad, because big, showy cuffs would have only made this shirt even sketchier. It fits correctly, at least!

I’m not going to set a weekly goal for myself like I did last summer. I’m quite happy with my skills and I’m looking forward to trying some new techniques. For the near future, I’m going to take a break from shirts altogether and work on my coatmaking skills. Stay tuned, tumblr!