Tuesday 3 January 2012

Breath in!!!

So I jumped straight into my SAM challenge on the first day of the New Year. Not to waste any time, I chose a pattern I already had - Butterick 5365 by Connie Crawford.
Challenge on this will be the two-piece banded collar...time to Google how others have tackled this area of a shirt. I won't go into any details as the wheel has already been invented on this many times.

My fabric choice is a khaki burnout which is very sheer in the burnout areas. To this end I am planning on wearing a little cami under the shirt. First major decision is whether to interface the collar and front in black, or white. The black brings out the pattern and the white blends....OK, so a no-brainer...black it is.Then instead of interfacing I am going to use a very fine voile. The pattern is designed for fluid, drapey fabric and the voile should (fingers crossed) move with the fabric.

My major change is to change the front to a placket with a fold-out to the front, with the voile sandwiched inbetween. Somewhere to showcase the buttons, and also to provide support to the buttonholes. Planning on doing double buttons, very small, down the front.

Time to go and whip this little number up...

Oh, dear!!! What have I done??? Somewhere along the line my calculations on the front placket have been lost and my dear little shirt is just that...a dear LITTLE shirt...it bearly fits me across the booby area!!! Never have had this problem in my life - big boobs - maybe this shirt isn't such a mistake after all!!!
But no, on reflection it isn't my calculations as after construction my version of the placket using measurements to the nth degree, the whole front and back still fitted exactly into the collar area. So in reality, the shirt is just running small for me. I'll just have to move it from my SAM file (Shirt A Month) to my O-SAM file (Open-Shirt A Month). 

Not to be deterred, as I will still be wearing this shirt (just not as planned) I am going to make this up again. It is a great shirt pattern to work with, very easy and great style. I will definitely refine the fit on this and be making up a few more (yes, not just one but a few...)

Details...
Sleeve



















Pleats










Back - One major point to note on this shirt, I added 6cm to the length of this shirt at the 'lengthen here' mark on the pattern - wouldn't want it any shorter than it turned out!!!
























Will let you know how the next 'improved' version goes...

15 comments:

  1. At least you have a nice over shirt!

    "Breath in." A mantra for a busty girl. ;)

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  2. Way to go Doobee. Great start. No matter about wearing it open, it looks terrific. If you hadn't mentioned about lack of room across the front I would never have picked it up.

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  3. Well it turned out to be a very cute little shirt/jacket thing, I think you can still count it in!
    Thanks so much for your comment btw!

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  4. Your shirt looks lovely. You said you had planned to wear it with a cami anyway, so I would call the open front a design choice ;)
    I love the pleats into the shoulder seam,such a nice detail.

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  5. Well everyone I had actually not thought about adding it as one of my SAM's - the worm will go hungry at this early stage.
    But rest assured, Take #2 has just been cut out, with plenty of room for my 'pushy girls'.

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  6. Looks great! The pleats are really nice and I like the details of the cuffs and the nice collar. And like Pam said - if you hadn't said about the lack of room I wouldn't have noticed either!

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  7. This is a lovely version of the shirt I made it up in white middle of last year. I thought the sleeve cuffs were neat.

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  8. Sharp points on that collar! Wear it open and breathe normally

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  9. Love those pleats at the shoulder, such a nice feature. Looks great open!

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  10. Well its turned into a lovely summer jacket! GReta fabric too.

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  11. oops that was 'great fabric', not fabric for Greta

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  12. I so love having Australian sewing friends! I must do a post about how much I heart ya'll.

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  13. I like the fabric you've used, a lovely subtle pattern. You'd never know you couldn't do it up, unless you said!

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  14. It still looks great! - love the little details on that pattern like the pleats.

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  15. Love this shirt..The fabric is beautiful ..and it makes a great overshirt.
    I just made a tunic with a connie crawford pattern..I had a really hard time with fitting with it.It was my first time to use her patterns.. I think I picked and unpicked humpteen dozen times..eeeh it was frustrating.. So.. not sure I will use it ever again.ha
    SO proud yours came out so pretty.

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