Peter models the funky-cuffed summer shirt!

Readers, the shirt is finished and yesterday, with Michael's able assistance, I got to play fashion model!



I am now thinking the lavender cotton shirt fabric, which I had originally identified as lawn, is in fact voile.  Or gauze.  Or something.  As you can see in the photos, it's slightly transparent, loosely woven, and very soft.  In fact, the softness and loose weave resulted in the one (minor) disappointment in the shirt construction.



Not wanting to deal with flat-felled seams on such soft fabric, I'd planned to stitch the sleeves on, serge the seam allowance, and then stitch the seam allowance down to make a mock flat-felled seam.  However, even with the shirt open and flat (before I'd stitched the sleeve and torso closed), I was unable to stitch down the seam allowance without puckering -- it's that stretchy and soft.  This wasn't a tension issue, though it caused some!

I completed one side, and then ripped it out (gently); traces of which are slightly visible.  Has this ever happened to you?



Anyway, with a shirt this casual and summery, it's fine, and it's not like I'm going to be hurling baseballs in it or anything.  The shoulder seam is perfectly secure.



Here are a few more construction details.  You can view the whole folder of construction pics here.

I interfaced the collar stand with knit weft interfacing on just the outer layer.  For the collar itself I used an additional layer of my fashion fabric (I was short on interfacing).  This is one of my better collar stands.







I topstitched all the way around the stand; sometimes I skip that step.  With the exception of the buttonholes, I sewed the shirt entirely on my Featherweight, using a #9 needle.  Anything larger would occasionally snag the fabric.



I finished the sleeves and side seams with French seams, stitching at 2/8" wrong sides together, trimming down to 1/8 inch, pressing, and then stitching right sides together at roughly 3/8".  I like the result -- clean.



The buttonholes, which I made on my 15-91 with my buttonholer attachment, aren't gorgeous.  I chose not to interface the front left button placket and it could have used a little more heft for prettier buttonholes.   Do you see how the fabric puckers along the width of the placket?  Still, they're stable and not particularly noticeable.   (I really should clip those stray threads...)



And that's it.

Here's a little slide show of me modeling the shirt.  No sailors, I'm afraid.

As always, to see these photos full-size, please click on any image.  In Picasa, click on the title of the folder, and then in the left hand corner, "Slideshow."



Happy Sunday, everybody -- and to all your fathers out there, Happy Father's Day!

Sewing with Old Sheets

Readers, as you probably know, I'm a big fan of repurposing old bedsheets.

I was going to say vintage bedsheets, but really, the age of the sheet doesn't matter, it's the cost that counts.  You see, the best thing about sewing with sheets is that they can usually be found in thrift stores for just a few dollars (if that) and they're generally huge.

A twin flat sheet has more than enough fabric to make a men's shirt, and with a king-size you can probably make a cotton ball gown with a luxuriously high thread count!   Always look out for prominent stains and fading, of course -- we want to avoid those.

I've found some wonderful sheets at the Salvation Army -- the designs from the Seventies are the most fun, I think.  The downside is that in that era, sheets were generally cotton/poly, and they can get smelly.  Then again, you don't have to iron them.

Here are some of my favorite sheet projects...

Shirts, shirts, and more shirts!









And even some of Cathy's outfits.  Don't tell Cathy someone slept in her dress -- besides her.







So yesterday afternoon, as I was finishing up my lavender cotton shirt, I had a vintage sheet epiphany.  As you know, I'd made the collar and collar stand white, which gave the shirt a nice crispness and highlighted the lavender.



Unfortunately, it also gave the shirt a banker-y formality I didn't want.  Plus, a white collar calls for white cuffs, which would only intensify the banker thing, plus, white cuffs show dirt.  What to do?

Then it hit me!  I dug through my collection of vintage sheets and voilà!







Sort of Lily Pulitzer meets Wamsutta, right?

Yes?  No?  Maybe, with a matching bowtie?

The big shirt reveal will be tomorrow but you get the idea.  The sheet -- which is pictured up top -- is a huge Seventies-era flat sheet I found at the Salvation Army last year.  Not sure what I'll do with the rest of it -- maybe a jumpsuit!

In closing, friends, do you ever sew with vintage (or just plain old) sheets? 

When you wear what you've sewn, do people ever guess that you're clothed in second-hand bedding?  (Do they inadvertently start yawning when you tell them?)

Is the ewww factor just too insurmountable?

Sheets-into-clothes: yea or nay?

BREAKING -- We interrupt this crinoline...

Readers, I can't explain it.  Ever since formally ending the Men's Shirt Sew-Along on Monday, shirt photos have been pouring in over at our Flickr group.  Obviously reverse psychology, emotional manipulation, and veiled threats work!

Pictured above is Taylor, a young Sew-Along participant from Nashville, TN.  Do you see Taylor's muslin?  He drafted it himself.  No Negroni, Butterick, or vintage McCall's for him, oh no!

But that's not all.  Do you see his jeans?  He drafted THOSE himself too!



So awesome did his jeans turn out, in fact, that in January they were featured on the popular men's fashion blog, Put This On.  You can read more about Taylor, his jeans, and his other too-good-to-be-true projects on his blog, TaylorTailor.

But I certainly didn't want to make this all about Taylor.  In fact, if I weren't so non-competitive, generous-spirited, and loving a person, I wouldn't have mentioned him at all.  (Taylor who?)  I need another drag...

But back to our Sew-Along...

OK, readers, this is not a still from Night of the Living Tablecloths, but an incredible muslin produced by participant Kamilee.  Wow and pass the ketchup.



And speaking of picnics, I'm very fond of this lovely gingham Negroni produced by SewRedHot.  I could swear my Allan doll -- which I am hoping to receive today -- has the exact same shirt though his facings are terrycloth.  And he doesn't have that sexy salt and pepper beard...



But there's more!

Put on your 3-D glasses and feast your eyes on this fabulous creation by Sewsister, which apparently represents the actual conception of Lindsay Lohan as seen under an electron microscope.



I am so proud of all the Sew-Alongers, and the many courageous men who braved the unforgiving glare of the flash cube so that these unique creations could be recorded for posterity -- albeit without heads.  And remember, folks: these are just the muslins!

I'll be posting more shirts in the coming weeks, you can be sure.

A big hug to you all!



(photo courtesy of swreflection).

And now, back to The Tulle That Ate My Living Room, already in progress.



Have a great day, everybody!

How should a man's shirt fit? Peter's 20-shirt challenge!

Quick -- name those celebrity lats!

Friends, with less than one week before our Men's Shirt Sew-Along formally begins, I've been doing a lot of thinking and re-thinking about shirts.  We already have more than 100 Sew-Along participants, with numbers climbing daily, many using the Colette Negroni pattern and many using shirt patterns of their own choosing.  The shirt button numbers alone are staggering.

The construction details we're going to be addressing are relatively straightforward: flat-felled seams, rolled hems, sleeve plackets, collar stand and collar, etc.  The fabric you'll be working with is of your own choosing, and I can see from our Flickr group that they range from traditional stripe to Sixties acid trip.

Yesterday I took some time to closely investigate my own shirt collection, a mix of ready-to-wear shirts I've accumulated over the years, and my own creations crafted from vintage shirt patterns.

I also spent a few hours re-reading David Page Coffin's take on fitting a shirt and self-drafting a pattern from his classic book, Shirtmaking, which I know many of you are familiar with.





I want accurate fitting to be a focus of our Sew-Along and I think you do too.  I put on my thinking cap and have decided to invite a professional into our Sew-Along project!  Starting on the very first day of our Sew-Along I will be working privately with -- I can't mention his name yet, but you know it.  And what I learn I will be sharing with you here and in our Flickr group as we work on fitting our muslins and our final shirts.  You can get by with pinked seam allowances and bargain basement fabric, but if the shirt doesn't fit it's going to be obvious to everyone.

Fit has to be a sewist's biggest challenge.  It's also one that I have managed to avoid on my upper half, having convinced myself that I can wear a shirt made straight from a commercial pattern.  The truth is that I can get away with wearing a shirt made straight from a pattern.  The fit, however, is never ideal.

I've examined and recorded the fit of twenty shirts and I can tell you with confidence that none fits perfectly.  Some are closer than others of course, but there's work to do.

Most are decent, especially in front, where I have fewer fit issues.



 

Others, well....  off to the thrift store they go!



If you have the time and the inclination to pore through more than 100 pics of me in 20 different shirts, you can see them all here.   Strong coffee and a comfortable chair are recommended.

I kid you not when I say that before I started sewing, I gave the fit of this Brooks Brothers's shirt nary a second thought.  It was just the way things were.



Things have gotten better now that I make my own shirts, but there is tweaking to be done and I am ready to tweak.



Friends, we are going to do this together and we will have expert help.  Life is too short to stumble in semi-darkness.

Sew-Alongers and Sew-Along fence sitters, your assignment this week is to take a close look at the fit of either your own men's shirt (if you're male), or the shirt of the person you'll be sewing for (if you're female), preferably on the person himself.  Everybody else, do what makes sense.  With regards to fit, what works for you (and him) and what doesn't?  What looks too loose, what looks too tight?

If you can, upload a pic or two to the Flickr group page, so we can see what the perceived problems are.  We are shame-free here at MPB, rest assured.

And now, I've much to do -- including contending once again with this.



Will it never end?

Have a great day everybody.  How are those men's shirt fitting?  What are the challenges?  Share!

Peter models the McCall's 1954 Men's Sport Shirt!

Friends, thank you so much for your warm and witty comments yesterday in celebration of baby's first birthday here at Male Pattern Boldness.  As you can imagine, after this weekend the house is a mess and I'm emotionally spent.  This has nothing to do with the festivities, mind you, I just completed another men's shirt sewing project!

You may recall my mentioning McCall's 3087 last week almost in passing.  We've all been so focused on our upcoming Men's Shirt Sew-Along (which I am excited to announce already has 100 participants, and latecomers wishing to purchase the Colette Negroni pattern and enjoy our 20% discount have until the end of January to do so -- details here.) you might have thought I'd stopped sewing.

McCall's 3087 is a vintage men's sport shirt from the halcyon Eisenhower years of McCarthy hearings, Cold War, and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers -- 1954 to be exact.



As many of you have already pointed out, there's a bit of a mystery to this pullover sport shirt -- how does one actually get into it?  Friends, the secret is contained in this little pattern piece.  Can you figure it out?



Sewing McCall's 3087 was a fascinating process as its construction is different from anything I had sewn before, but the instructions were straight forward.  The only truly dramatic moment was one I alluded to yesterday: my spurting a puddle of Fray Check all over the upper right shirt front as I reinforced a buttonhole.  Believe me when I say the word uttered in my panic was straight from the school yard and it wasn't Ring-a-levio!

This was one of those thank heaven for the Internet moments: I immediately googled How to remove fray check and was led to the Dritz Fray Check information page, containing detailed instructions on its removal, involving a long soak in alcohol.  And it worked, for me and the shirt.

My fashion fabric was a loosely woven, lightweight, pale gray flannel and I decided -- perhaps inspired by the construction of the RTW Western shirt we examined on Saturday -- to simply serge my seam allowances and skip the more painstaking flat-felled seams.

On the armscye I stitched the allowances down (toward the torso of course) to create a flat-felled look from the outside.  Can you tell the difference?





I sewed my first continuous lap on a shirt sleeve -- trickier than a placket, imo -- with decent results. We'll talk more about those during the Sew-Along.



The front is what makes this shirt special.  You secure the neckline with two buttons just below the collar and those buttons must be correctly positioned.  I had to sew mine on six times.





I am pleased with the result, which brings to mind Perry Como at his mellowest and Bing Crosby at his Minute Maid-iest.

The finished shirt.  I really need some new props.







If I were doing this again -- and I know someone is making this for the Sew-Along so listen up -- I would use a gingham or stripe or perhaps a somewhat heavier flannel.  It really is a sport shirt, so the sportier the better!

The fit is roomy as one would expect from a shirt like this, and I made no alterations.  But I could easily have taken 2" out of the chest, which is a size 36.  You could wear it as an overshirt or tunic.



More pics of the shirt construction and results here.

So what do you think -- yea or nay on this 1954 classic?  I'm on the fence.  Too costume-y?  Too...something?  Be honest.

In closing, Sew-Alongers, don't forget to post pics of your fabric and patterns (if different from Negroni) on our Sew-Along Flickr page.

And you all still have till midnight tonight (EST) to enter yesterday's Vogue Patterns giveaway so don't delay.

Happy Monday, everybody!