actual shirt attempt: Vogue 9220

I said when I started sewing, and for the three years following, that I would never make a shirt. I haven't worn a single item of clothing with buttons on it since I took my school uniform off for the last time and I don't intend to ever do so again (I fully recognise that this is really weird, but I've hated buttons since I was a small child and my vibe is not the button-up vibe anyway), so I didn't really ever expect to revisit the point.

Last year, however, Patrick made a couple of pouty comments about my resolve to never make him a shirt. He may have been kidding - he would certainly say now that he was - but I do feel a bit bad that I don't make much for him, and the kinds of shirts that he likes seem to have been completely out of production recently. At first I said I'd make him a shirt if he paid for me to do a shirtmaking class, but then nobody seemed to be running them. When I thought about it in a bit more detail, I realised that it wasn't actually that many new techniques - I've sewn collars before, I know how to flat-fell a seam - and it probably wasn't worth paying a couple of hundred quid to get someone to show me how to make sleeve plackets and then talk me down from my buttonhole anxiety. So I resolved to give it a try on my own.

Look at it! It's a shirt!

The pattern we went for was Vogue 9220. Patrick is very particular about his shirts and didn't want front pockets or floppy collars or fake anything anywhere, which narrowed it down considerably, and this pattern had both fit options and cuff options. I haven't seen another pattern for double cuffs, and it's one of his favourite things. I initially said I would start off with regular cuffs and work up to the fancier ones, but decided as I was cutting it out that these weren't appreciably more difficult so I may as well just dive in head first. The shirt comes in standard, tailored, or slim fit, and this is (allegedly) the latter.

The main reason Patrick hasn't been able to find shirts lately is that the prints have been wrong. Again, he's got very particular taste - he likes loud prints, but stylish loud. He wouldn't look twice at a novelty shirt. He's very into Liberty prints, mostly florals and paisleys, and his colour palette is quite specific. While I could find several fabrics that fit the criteria, they were all £16 per metre and up, and I wasn't prepared to spend that on something that was an experiment and could very well be unwearable. I also didn't want to just buy a plain cotton and make him a work shirt, because that's no fun at all (also they're covered by a suit jacket all day and it would feel like a giant waste of effort). I searched for a little while before coming across this viscose at my favourite stall in Walthamstow. Seriously, they have everything. While orange is not one of Patrick's colours, it's sparing enough to work, and though it isn't cotton it also doesn't have any polyester in it, so shouldn't be too sweaty. And at £6 for two metres, I wouldn't cry if (when???) I messed it up. Viscose is very much not the ideal fabric for this kind of shirt, structure-wise, but it was good enough for a trial run.

I got everything cut out and interfaced, then it sat around for a couple of months while I had nerves at it. Finally, in mid-June, I decided enough was enough and got the shirt finished up to the point of making holes in it in a few sessions over the course of a week. And really? It wasn't that hard. The only place I really had difficulty was making the plackets, which was totally new to me and not the easiest thing to comprehend from the brief instructions. With the help of a couple of tutorials I got them to be functional if not especially pretty, and I'll now have a better idea of what I'm doing when I try again. What I should have done was poked about on the inside of one of the many shirts already in the house, but I didn't. Next time. But the yoke, the collar, the sleeves, the flat felling, and the double cuffs all went pretty smoothly. Even my topstitching wasn't too hideous.

At this point I got him to try it on. We decided it was too big in the shoulders and WAY too long in both the body and the arms ("oh, by the way" said Patrick as we were doing this, "I have incredibly short arms"), but that it was still wearable so I should carry on and finish it. You can see the huge folds of fabric on the sleeves in all the photos above, and witness the utter ridiculousness that is the back length:

Look how long that is. It's practically down to his knees. I think it's partly that this pattern runs long and partly that we're using a dress shirt pattern to make a regular shirt because there's no such thing as a regular shirt pattern with double cuffs. Sigh. The shirt then sat almost finished for AGES while I panicked about the whole button/buttonhole situation. I was pretty sure that I'd get the alignment of buttons to buttonholes wrong (spoiler: yep) and that would make the whole thing look like shit. It was well over a month, if not two, before I leapt on a random trailing thread of motivation and got everything finished.

In terms of my first attempt at buttons and buttonholes, it's not hideous, but I did mess up the alignment on the top and bottom buttons. The bottom one I was able to cut off and redo, the top one not so much. We decided it wasn't that big a deal as he never uses the top button on his non-work shirts anyway. I also bought a pack of bog-standard buttons and I really don't like them. Solid white next time.

Me: I mean, you're probably not going to wear this one so I -
Him: [affronted] I will.
Me: But it's way too big.
Him: I will wear it and I will look styling.
Me: But...
Him: I. Will look. Styling.

Once I realised he wasn't budging on this point, I insisted we shorten the shirt to a less ridiculous length. I didn't want to force him into two separate photo sessions, so what you see above is the shirt pinned into place (I have since hemmed it properly, don't worry). Though the sleeves are still obviously too long, it's much better like this.  Look how much less ridiculous the back is now:

This did not go as badly as I feared for a first attempt, but there's a lot of work to be done here. For a start, while this isn't necessarily a bad fit for a shirt to have, it's not how Patrick wears his shirts. This is supposed to be the slim fit cut but there's still a LOT of ease in here. Patrick has narrow shoulders so I always thought there might be a need to go down a size in the shoulders, but a smaller size overall will probably get us closer to the fit he likes. Having done some measuring of his normal shirts compared to this one, I think a decent chunk of the sleeve problem would be resolved if the shoulder seam sat in the right place, but I would still take a couple of centimetres off the sleeve length next time. Patrick also thinks the double cuffs are a bit skimpy and would like more length taken out of the sleeve then added back in at the cuff. I think for this I'm just going to measure the cuffs on his regular shirts and make them that size.

My guess is we'd be adding an extra centimetre to these. Also, say hi to either Alphonse or Ernie (I'm not sure who lives on which side), the massive bejewelled lizard cufflinks I got him for Christmas last year. 

For my own ease of reference, the adjustments I'll make next time:

- size down to a 38, possibly even a 36
- shorten the sleeves by 2cm
- reduce size of dip in back of shirt
- shorten hem by 2cm at the front, 5cm at the back
- increase the size of the cuff by 1cm
- ignore the bit where it asks for different sizes of button for no real reason
- burrito the yoke instead of slipstitching then topstitching and wasting a lot of time

He's pleased, though, so it's okay. 

As I mentioned in my autumn plans, before I make another one of these I want to have a go at the Sew Over It Hackney shirt (sans front pocket, because Patrick thinks shirt pockets are for dweebs). Partly because I downloaded the pattern in my mass Stitch School harvesting session and it would be nice to use it, but also because - unusually for Sew Over It - they provide a full range of finished measurements upfront. Chest, waist, hem, collar, shoulder width, back length, sleeve length, underarm seam. I think that will be really useful in trying to get the fit right. My hope is that eventually I can merge the two into some kind of Patrick Frankenpattern and be able to create the perfect Liberty print shirt by his 40th birthday in March. Which might be a bit of a tall order as Liberty is not looking especially Patricky at the moment. We've had a bit of back and forth over whether a shirt in the same print as my Minoru would work, and he has concluded that he just won't know until there's a shirt of it in front of him. This is not a risk I am prepared to take. For now I've got a navy and white cotton lawn with stripy background and floral foreground (which has now arrived and is eminently shirtable) from Abakhan, and we're going to see how that goes.

Up next: either Pietra trousers or B6621 dress, depending on what I finish first!

Vogue 9220 shirt attempt

Fabric: Japanese viscose from Walthamstow
Cost: £6
Pattern details: Men's formal shirt in standard, tailored or slim fit, with collar and collar stand, sleeve plackets, and regular or double cuff options.
Size: 40
Alterations: None for the first try
Would make again/would recommend: Yes/Yes

spring sewing: a bright purple coat, and bonus Ruska

I was completely certain that I was back on track with my normal schedule, but this post took me much longer to write (and photograph) than I'd thought it would. When I first finished this coat I was completely thrilled with it, but now that a couple of weeks have passed, I'm feeling much less enthused.

I'll start off by saying that I know this looks cute. It's a nice shape, a great colour, and aside from being a little wrinkly it photographs well. People are always keen to reassure that an item is totally wearable and I appreciate it, but a lot of the issues I have with this coat are things that aren't really apparent from pictures. 

A few weeks after I made my spring plan I happened to come across this purple wool crepe at my favourite stall in Walthamstow and got really excited. I thought it was a great weight for a light coat and a perfect colour for me for spring. I also chanced upon Simplicity 8554, an unlined coat pattern designed for lighter fabrics in a wrap style with a proper collar. The pattern arriving through my letterbox was the final push I needed to actually start sewing again after a very unpleasant month. I'm therefore reluctant to be too hard on this coat because it did get me my sewjo back, but in retrospect, these two elements are both nice individually but don't go terribly well together.

The more I wear (or attempt to wear) this coat, the more I'm aware that I whiffed the fabric choice. This stuff is slightly too thick and slightly lacking in the right drape for the garment to fall nicely. It also led to a bunch of issues with the seams, but we'll get on to that in a minute. On top of that, it's not quite soft enough to work as an unlined coat generally intended to be worn over short sleeves in the spring. It's not super itchy or anything, but it's just that tiny bit irritating, enough to put me off wearing it.

The other problem with this fabric is the colour. It's a great colour, and I really did want a brighter coat for spring, but it literally doesn't go with anything. The reason this took me so long to post is that I took at least four runs at photographing this coat with different outfits, trying to find something that looked OK, and kept coming up short. It doesn't help that I have a bit of a thing against wearing a rainbow colour on the top and black on the bottom (I could not tell you why, I just never like the way it looks on me), which I probably should have considered before I cut this out. This is the closest I get to liking it - leaning in to the contrast and wearing it with full-on bright mustard yellow. I think this looks good, but I really don't want to have to co-ordinate my outfit around my coats.

This would be an incredibly quick and easy sew (by coat standards), except for one thing: it's unlined, so there is a crapton of seam finishing to do, and for some reason the pattern instructions don't mention this at all. They tell you to finish the raw edge of the facing and that's it. I muddled my way through most of the finishing - I used bias binding on all the seams (Hong Kong finish on the main seams and normal binding on the pockets and armholes) because I wanted it to look nice, but really had no idea which order to do things in to get the best end result. Honestly, it's not worked all that well. The fabric, as I mentioned, is slightly too thick for the style of the coat and as a result it all feels a bit bulky and unwieldy. I wanted to use a Liberty bias binding for cool floral insides, but then that would have cost about £40 and I didn't want it THAT much. I used a not-quite-matching purple for most of the seams, and a grey for the sleeve seams because I ran out and the sleeves seemed like the least conspicuous place.

This coat also has in-seam pockets, and I'll be honest, I just hate them. They're awkward, they're not comfortable for me to put things in, and they bulge when I cinch the waist in. I knew I was going to hate them before I even started, but I didn't know what I could switch them out for in an unlined coat and a coat with no pockets is just stupid. I don't desperately need everything to have pockets if it doesn't work for the pattern, but I bought a pocket-free coat once ages ago, and it drove me absolutely nuts. Where else can I awkwardly shove my hands?? On second thought, don't answer that.

Beyond the seams I made very few adjustments other than to shorten the pattern to knee length (partly because that was my original intention, partly because at mid-calf length this thing gives off a slight air of bathrobe). I was intending to just sew up the side seams rather than having the splits, but aforementioned lack of bias binding forced my hand and in retrospect I'm glad. This is a super-simple coat and it's nice to have that little detail there.

I still really like the style of this coat and if I could find my way around the bits I didn't like, I would definitely make it again. I would definitely want to switch out the pocket, so if anyone could recommend an alternative pocket type that won't look like ass in an unlined coat, please let me know! I would also want a lighter, drapier fabric that would allow me to just French seam the whole coat, skipping all the stupid bulky seaming bits, and a slightly more workable colour. I'll be on the lookout.

While we're here, here's a proper look at the dress, which I don't think requires its own post as I've covered the Ruska dress pretty thoroughly:

This wasn't at all what I intended to make (I wanted a waist seam and a slightly roomier skirt) but I used most of the fabric trying out Vogue 9023, which I hated. I should have dealt with it long enough to take a picture, but it's one of the most unflattering things I've ever seen on me. Part of that is just personal preference, but a chunk of the credit also has to go to the sleeves, which were HUGE. I have never seen sleeve caps that big. They were so much higher and wider than my usual well-fitting jersey sleeves that I was able to literally cut them off the dress (leaving a decent amount of fabric behind in the seam allowance), lay the Ruska sleeve over the top and comfortably cut new ones. Which in a way is good, because I wouldn't have had enough fabric for a second full dress otherwise. This isn't my ideal dress, but it is good enough to be wearable, and I don't have to be sad that I wasted this SUPER soft ponte. It's from Fabric Land and it's lovely.

My summer sewing plans will be up next. Spring didn't go well for me at all (in terms of ability to actually sew and success rate of the finished pieces), so I'm excited to move away from it and start thinking about a fresh set of projects, hopefully with overall better results! I am still intending to make the bag set at some point soon, though.

Simplicity 8554 coat

Fabric: Violet wool crepe from Walthamstow Market
Cost: £9
Pattern details: Drapey unlined wrap coat with collar, tie belt and side seam pockets
Size: 18, 20 in the hip
Alterations: Shortened to knee length
Would make again/would recommend: Maybe/Maybe

spring sewing: Ellis skirt (and bonus Nettie)

As I've mentioned a couple of times now, I keep making denim skirts and they keep sucking. Most of them are so terrible they don't make it to being photographed. I've put my Ness skirt back on a few times since making it, and concluded every time that it's really not wearable and the fit around my waist and hips is just too weird. I had been planning to have another go at it, but put that idea to the side when I realised I'd be making eleven different adjustments for an outcome that was by no means guaranteed. I also briefly considered making a standard mini skirt out of denim and dramatically reshaping the back to be more of a tulip, but eventually went for the Cashmerette Ellis. I said in my sewing plans that I was a bit sceptical about the apple/pear differential, but went ahead and purchased it on two grounds: one, I wasn't sure I could take any more failures and Cashmerette has always fit me fairly reliably; and two, the line art showed the skirt noticeably tapering in towards the hem, which seemed like it would go some way to curing my butt-cape issue.

And look! It's wearable! That sounds like damning with faint praise, but every other denim skirt I have made has been worn out of the house once and then thrown away when I get back. There are certainly a couple of adjustments that I could make to this pattern, but they're quite minor and, crucially, won't stop me wearing this version as part of my normal wardrobe.

I normally make a size 12 waist in Cashmerette, but went for a 14 this time. My smallest part is very high on my waist, higher up than I would normally wear a skirt, so I thought it'd be safer to size up. For future versions (which I will make) I would size down in the back but not the front as I have a tiny bit of gaping at my back waist. I cut between 16 and 18 in the hips, and that was too big (you can see it's giving me wrinkles). Next time I'll go to 16 or a bit smaller. I bought 2m of this denim and the skirt uses 1m of it, so I'm going to make a second version with the fit adjustments I've detailed here and report back on how it works.

I also shortened the skirt by about an inch and a half, which is pretty standard for me; I think I'm an inch or two taller than the height Cashmerette drafts for but I tend to prefer my mini skirts to be a little shorter.

This skirt does not give me butt-cape (finally!) but I would prefer it to taper in slightly more. On future versions I'll either taper the back panels in more, or just size down and do a full butt adjustment. I've never done one before but I probably ought to start. Also next time I will use a slightly shorter zip. The pattern calls for a 7" zip but I had a good inch or so of my zip hanging outside the fly extension. I would probably use a 6" in the future, as that's what the fly extension measures.

You will notice that I did not do the contrast topstitching. I did some of the topstitching in navy, but I am not precise enough for nice-looking topstitching and the denim was super bulky (I thought I'd bought the same stuff I used for my last attempt, but this was both darker and bulkier) so it definitely wasn't the best time to start. It's on my list of things to practice, though, and I will make a topstitched version at some point. Almost all of my seams are flat-felled (the pocket lining is French seamed); the pattern calls for a zig-zag stitch or overlocking to finish, but I'm really not interested in a denim garment that's not flat-felled.

I'm wearing it with the Closet Case Patterns Nettie bodysuit from my spring plans. Normally I make a separate post for all my planned garments even if they're repeats, but I genuinely can't think of anything else I could possibly say about this. I wasn't convinced about this fabric as it isn't what I thought it was going to be when I ordered it, but I actually don't hate the way this looks on me and I've worn it a fair bit over the few weeks since I made it.

In conclusion: yes, something has FINALLY worked. I will definitely make more of these, probably in some form of needlecord. I saw a really pretty gold printed one last week that I've been struggling not to buy ever since, but I really need to clear another 20 metres or so out of my stash before I buy anything else. Ugh, the trials of living in London and having zero space to put anything. Our ceiling repair is finally getting finished this week and I'm going to attempt to use all the moving stuff around as an opportunity to KonMari my living space a bit. Possibly my sewing patterns also. I've definitely got at least a dozen that need to go but I never get round to it because we don't have any charity shops (or shops in general) anywhere within easy walking distance. I need to get a grip, though, because I'm not going to stop buying shiny new patterns any time soon! 

Ellis skirt

Fabric: Indigo stretch denim from Walthamstow Market
Cost: £10
Pattern details: Straight/slightly tapered skirt with two views: classic jean skirt with topstitching and front slit, and simpler mini skirt with diagonal pockets
Size: 14 waist, between 16-18 hip
Alterations: Hem shortened slightly, contrast topstitching omitted
Would make again/would recommend: Yes/Yes

spring sewing: the wrap skirt wardrobe malfunction test

The idea of making a wrap skirt has been rattling around in the back of my head for a while. In the summer I wear maxi length almost exclusively and you all know I love a wrap anything, so it seemed like a no-brainer, especially when I realised I was sitting on four pieces of fabric that all wanted to be wrap skirts. But I kept putting it off, because I wanted to find an actually interesting pattern. I know I could cut some rectangles, add some ties to the end and be done, but that's not what I wanted. I wanted something with a bit of actual design to it, and nobody seemed to be making those. 

This is McCalls 7606, and I'm not sure it's the one. 

This pattern is for an off-the-shoulder or cold-shoulder bodysuit (which I may make if I'm bored one day) and this shaped wrap skirt, with or without hem ruffles. I wasn't sure this was what I wanted but it was literally the only one I could find with any interest to it whatsoever. Everything else looked like it came from a WikiHow article using only two measurements and a ruler, which I'm not saying is a bad look but I am saying I wouldn't pay eight quid for. 

The fabric is a viscose from Fabric Land, a gift from my mother. I love the colours (I think I actually look better in red and purple but I'd much rather wear peacock shades) but I didn't spend enough time with the fabric before I decided it had to be a wrap skirt. When I came to cut it out, I realised that a) the print went vertically and not horizontally as I'd originally thought and b) it was super narrow so I couldn't just cut the whole thing on the cross-grain. As a result it doesn't look quite like I'd envisioned it and it definitely suffers from that. I wanted a fairly sleek skirt but I'm now wondering if I should have added the ruffles anyway just to make it a bit more interesting. 

The most important thing, obviously, was the obligatory Wardrobe Malfunction Test. So I broke out my favourite pair of chub rub shorts, which I got in Sainsbury's about ten years ago and have never been able to replace. They're falling apart now, so I really need to start working on making some myself, but they won't be as perfect as these ones GAAAAHHH. Anyway, I put them on and went for the briefest walk I could possibly plan, bearing in mind what happened last time I did one of these tests. 

And... yes, malfunctions occurred. I think it's a combination of how light and easily disturbed this fabric is, the small amount of overlap at the waist and the curve at the front. Any two out of the three and it might have been alright, but as it was things definitely got precarious every time there was a slight breeze. If I were going to remake this skirt I'd definitely go up a few sizes to get more overlap at the front; due to the way the curve is cut I wouldn't even lose that much leg, I don't think. 

(This top is the black Nettie bodysuit I'd originally intended to make for my winter plans. It is one of the best and most useful things I have ever made and I have worn it to goddamn death this last two months. Not having to worry about tops riding up makes getting dressed so much easier and it's enabled me to get wear out of clothes that had just been sitting sadly in my wardrobe for months. I love it. I'm seriously considering buying more fabric and making two more identical ones so that wearing it as often as I do is a bit less gross.)

I will probably not be wearing this skirt, which is a shame. For an easy summer skirt I'm not that bothered about it not looking quite how I'd imagined (the colours carry it sufficently, I think), but the potential for malfunction is too great. I'd just never be able to relax. Maybe if we end up going on a beach or beach-adjacent holiday this year I'll take it with me as a swimsuit cover-up, and it'll probably be useful around the house if we get another super-hot summer. What I definitely will not be doing is making the three further versions I'd intended on if this one worked. I have three fabrics currently in my stash that have decided they want to be wrap skirts, and I don't know what I'm going to do with them now. Someone must have an interesting take on a wrap skirt, surely?

Up next: probably a Walthamstow fabric post. I've had a run of failures lately and it's been super demotivating (and unhelpfully timed). I will eventually get round to taking photos and posting about them, but I'm not in that place yet. Fabric talk and crowd sourcing ideas it is!