The silk shirt

Well, here's the silk shirt and my last word on V1033.

The silk shirt, front view

And back view

The silk  fabric came, again, from Mood LA; the buttons, as I said in the last post, from Chelsea Flea market in NY.

I’ve made this shirt often enough to feel fairly confident about it now.  This time round, I added a little width to the sleeve and gathered rather than pleating it at the cuff, to go with the ladylike buttons. I was thinking lady blouse not shirt.

In keeping with the mood I opted for a tie collar.  It’s a really easy thing to do – just like adding a super-long neckband. Here’s how I did it in case anyone wants to know:

For the blouse body, I turned the front facings to the right side and stitched them at the neckline.  People often recommend using a narrow seam for the neckline, but I find a normal seam allowance easier to handle.  I can always trim it if needed.  I clipped the neck edge so that when I turned the facings back to the inside   the blouse neck was ready   for sewing on the tie as shown below:

I didn’t cut a collar or band, just a strip the full width of my fabric (140cm) and about 8 cm wide.

I marked the centre (i.e. the 70 cm point). 

I measured the length of the neckline (excluding the facings) on the blouse.

On the neck tie I marked the spots where the tie would end.  I cut a bit of high quality iron-on interfacing the length of the neckline and 4 cm wide, and then   interfaced the tie at the centre.  

I folded the tie in half lengthwise, right sides together and stitched from the ends to the marked point, then turned the ties right way out.

Then I sewed the tie collar on as though it were an ordinary neckband, attaching the interfaced part of the tie to the neckline, right sides together, and matching the centre mark on the tie with the centre back of the neckline.  I turned in the remaining raw edge of the tie and hand sewed it to the inside of the neckline.  (Some people like to sew the tie to the neckline before they stitch the ends of the tie.)

Because the fabric is silk, I used French seams for the body and sleeve seams. I bound the armscye seam in a Hong Kong style finish, using bias strips of the silk.  But I made the strips 2.5 cm wide and trimmed the edge back less rigorously than usual so that there is just a little more support for the seam in case of slippage.  (The silk is tightly woven so I don’t think that’s likely, but after the episode of the wool challis I’m playing it safe!)

The armscye seam  with the  binding tacked on

 

I had the buttonholes professionally done, and they turned out much better than any of the samples I tried to make.   

 

buttonhole in close up

And  I love the buttons.

Buttons close up

So, the shirt saga comes to an end.  Next post- a couple of dresses!

Vintage buttons, thanks to MPB!

I was going to wait till the shirt was done, but the post on Male Pattern Boldness about the Chelsea Flea market was one I had to respond to in more than a comment.

 I had visited New York once in 1987, but didn’t know that there were any flea markets in the city (for all I know there weren't back then!)  It wasn't till I started seeing Peter's frequent posts on his amazing finds that I began to wish I too could rummage round the tables of junk/objects of desire  and wander the garment district looking for fabric stores.

When I got the chance to visit NY with my daughter for a week in January, the Chelsea Flea market was high on our agenda.  And at one of the indoor markets I found these beautiful buttons.

hand made  thread buttons

They are made by winding thread over a ring (in this case metal rings, often originally horn rings) and advertise themselves proudly as wash proof.  Which indeed they are.  Since they were a little discolored with age, I snipped one off the card and dropped it gingerly into a bowl of warm water with a little oxygen bleach in it.  Fifteen minutes later, it had come quite clean (as you can see if you look at the left button on the  second top row - my test wash).

The buttons are all washed now, waiting to be put on a shirt made from silk found at Mood fabrics and destined to be worn only on special occasions then lovingly hand washed.  More next post on the shirt (including its anti-slippage seam binding).  For now, THANKYOU PETER for blogging about the Flea market (and for your kind email about the fashion centre information kiosk) 

Shirt Seam slippage

The wool challis shirt described in my last post looked lovely, felt good, fitted fine but not tight and on the third wear the armscye seam at the back looked torn on one side and showed signs of pulling on the other.  Seam slippage!  Here's a picture of the less affected seam.  You can see the stitches pulling slightly

 I hadn't heard of slippage  before, but according to  the technical advice from thread company American  and Efird,  if "stress is applied to a seam, the yarns in the fabric slip out of the stitching causing an open seam" (see here for the PDF)  

It happens if the fabric has relatively loose weave (tick for the wool challis), the seam allowance is scant (tick for my sewing of the sleeves on this shirt) and there is a single row of stitching (more or less the case with the shirt, even though the seam was bound with a bias strip). Previous shirts in cotton, polyester and linen have never given this problem, so it's not strongly related to the pattern, except that this part of the armscye seam will always be under a little bit of tension when the wearer moves her shoulders.

If I had to have seam slippage on this shirt, it couldn’t have come at a better time, as I was at a sewing class at the wonderful Cloth Shop in Ivanhoe (Victoria Australia- here's a link to them) and could get instant sympathy and advice. Following the advice, I unpicked the binding from the worst affected seam and then unpicked the seam where the slippage was obvious.  I cut a piece of high quality soft and lightweight fusible to the shape of the back armscye and ironed it on very carefully.  I used just the tip of the iron and positioned the interfacing so that it slightly overlapped the edge of the body fabric where the seam had opened. Then I sewed up the seam, making it slightly deeper at the stress point.  I cut a new bias binding to replace the chewed up original (which was also now too narrow to cover the deeper portion of seam) and re-did the binding.  I then stitched a new seam ever so slightly deeper all round so there was a double row of stitching.

On the other armysce, where the slippage was not so dramatic, I just unpicked the binding enough to  enable me to apply a shaped  strip of fusible over the back and slightly into the seam allowance where the slippage  was visible, then restitched the binding and double stitched the seam. 


Here's a view of the repair on the inside

Now, to prevent any possibility of slippage on the silk shirt that is my next project, I will apply a self-fabric   interfacing to both armscyes, front and back.  I'll be sure to leave a bigger seam allowance for insurance.

Wish me luck!

A basic shirt - V1033

Vogue 1033  is a Sandra Betzina pattern for a shirt.  Her claim is that her patterns are drafted for more ‘realistic’ fit, including larger waist and tummy.  I think this is the case, but of course to get best fit, patterns may need to be tweaked.  And as I’m   short and stout tweaking is often needed!  But with this pattern at least I don’t need to add at the waist, which is a time saver and good for my self image.

 The envelope photograph shows a garment that is not overly fitted.  The shoulder photographed is not very dropped (though the drawn illustration of view B and the line drawings all suggest a slightly dropped shoulder).  It has pretty close to straight sides, but has both bust and vertical darts in the front.  The line drawing on the back shows that it also has back darts.  This gives possibilities for easy shaping closer or looser and was something that attracted me to the pattern.

I also liked the relatively narrow sleeve that the pattern photo shows. When I looked up reviews on Pattern Review I discovered that some sewers found this a problem, and that the sleeve was generally found to be too short.  While I didn’t find the sleeve too narrow because I’m a little teapot with skinny arms, I did find it a bit on the close side at the top.  I also found it almost too short and that’s a first for me. (I usually have to take about 4cm length off the sleeve regardless of pattern brand).  So in the tweaking, I  added  1 cm  in the sleeve cap region and  about  0.5cm at the sleeve seam  at the top, thus giving  just a little more room at the  top of the sleeve and adding  fractionally to the overall length.

When I tried the pattern first time, I found another feature to like. The collar is cut as a single piece with a seam at centre back.  Because there are folds not seams  at the front edges you get a sharp point and a nice flat  edge, and have less likelihood of poking your collar turner through the bunched fabric in the point.  (Yeah, I’m a little teapot with skinny arms and a tendency to get over enthusiastic with a point turner.  But I promise I never try to turn points with my scissors!)

Some people  dislike aspects of V1033.  It’s not an edgy pattern, and to get close shaping you would want to alter the side seams a bit, it has an unusual collar and the sleeves are narrow. Those features actually endear this pattern to me, and I’ve now tweaked it pretty much to my satisfaction and had fun playing with it in various ways.

Tweaking for best fit, I have slightly reduced the shoulder width, added a little to the length above the bust, extended the back darts by about 5 cm at the top and, as I noted above, lengthened   the sleeve in the cap area and  added a bit to sleeve width at the underarm.   I have also usually shortened the overall length, though I do this on the garment rather than the pattern. The outcome is little different from the pattern as it was designed- it's become slightly less ‘casual shirt’ and slightly more 'semi-fitted blouse'.

Style changes that I have often made are: slightly reducing the width of the collar, making a straight rather than shaped band, making the sleeve somewhat fuller at the cuff and creating barrel cuffs with rounded rather than squared edges.   

Here are some things I have done with this pattern, making changes of detail that aren’t too difficult, but add interest.

Here’s my first attempt, basically to pattern in white linen.  The only variation from pattern here is that I turned the facing to the outside on the right front.

White linen shirt V1033

Another early shirt, in something polyesterish, where I played with a double collar. This was an idea I saw in Threads magazine.  I omitted a band  and made two collars, both the full length of the neckline and one slightly narrower than the other.  I stitched the lower collar (plain purple) to the right side of shirt.  I stitched the other collar (in the patterned fabric) to the wrong side of the shirt, flipped it over the collar so the raw edges of the seam were encased, and top stitched it down.  I made mock double cuffs, simply stitching a piece of the patterned fabric to the plain cuff.

double collar

fake double cuff

Next, a version the black and white striped cotton, where the interest is in the contrasting collar and French cuffs.  I didn’t use the French cuffs in the pattern, because they are for the ¾ sleeve in view A and I was using the full sleeve from B.  I created a pattern (basically just doubling an existing cuff piece). I had fun creating cuff links too.  I found four vintage buttons, and joined them in pairs with a thread bar covered in buttonhole stitches.

Striped cotton shirt V1033

detail of cuff

cuff link

Another striped version, in fine Italian striped cotton has no darts at all.  Ignoring the body darts is easy, but to remove the bust darts I had to trace a front pattern, cut and close the bust darts, (moving the fullness into body) then reshape the side seam.  The result has no lines to distract from the stripes.  It  works because the fabric is flimsy.

striped shirt, no darts at all  V1033

The latest version is in a lovely wool challis that I found at Mood fabrics when I was visiting LA.  The stuff was a bit of a pain to cut, but sewed and pressed like a dream.  I made the shirt pretty much straight from the pattern, but added a placket or chesterfield front.  To do this, I cut the fronts separately, one from the pattern, the other with the placket pinned to the front pattern matching centre fronts. (I created the placket pattern from an article in Australian Stitches.  Claire Shaeffer gives directions for the concealed placket in “High Fashion sewing Secrets’ as does David Page Coffin in ‘Shirtmaking’.)  My main reason for using this placket was that my sewing machine can be a bit temperamental about buttonholes.  I should have known that since they were not going to be seen, the machine would purr through them nearly perfectly!

V1033

So, this pattern is definitely a keeper for me.  Plans for it include a white silk blouse with bow tie instead of a collar, another shirt with French cuffs for showing off my cufflinks, and maybe a blouse with a peter pan collar.  The pattern is now out of print, so I think I’ll need to make a Vilene copy to preserve it.  It’s earned its place in the box of TNT patterns!