It's All In The Details!

 

A simple button down shirt, right? Oh, no. This shirt has a lot more substance than meets the eye and  is definitely worthy of discussion. 

There is a gentleman who I have the good fortune of knowing and he wears all of his shirts outside of his pants, dress shirts and casual. He will indicate exactly where the hem needs to be and bring them to me for conversion from classic shirttail hems to "untuck it" straight across, shorter type hems. In his case it is a physical issue and he likes nice clothing. He  is from the Western part of our country and this shirt above is a very nice shirt with a nod to that styling. It has no pearl buttons or pointed pocket flaps or yokes,  but has a tasteful, casual vibe and is made by a Western gear make, Noble Outfitters. They sell in boutiques out West. I was so impressed with the details on this shirt that I had to share. There was much all of us sewists could take away to elevate our own tops.  We'll start at the top. 

The pic above shows the inside of the collar band, made with a western themed cotton. Let's bullet this area:

*  Appropriately themed fabric for the collar band, nothing obvious but still referencing Western wear. 

*    Two rows of topstitching on the neck edge of the collar band. 

*    The collar band is interfaced with grosgrain ribbon with it's edge exposed, all the better to show it vibrant contrast. 

*    A grosgrain ribbon  for a loop to hang the shirt, ON  THE INSIDE. Love that, instead of on the outside. 

*     Plaids and manufacturer's label centered nicely. You will see this was made in Viet Nam and beautifully so. I can tell you this garment did not have one single short thread left from cutting that I could find anywhere. Everything was trimmed tightly and stitched to perfection. 

* Three eyelets embroidered on the collar stand  to allow for ventilation,  very cool,  IMO. 

Next on our journey is the inside of the upper chest area:

Each of the tiny buttons for the button down collar was backed with a tiny circle of thin felt to provide comfort for the wearer. 

On the outside of the back yoke the manufacturer has embroidered his logo over the pleat. He hasn't lost any opportunity to market his product on this shirt with embroidery as you will see.  I think he took a lesson from Guess jeans!

Let's move on to the sleeves:

Under each arm is a generous gusset, the better to lasso those cattle! Again, beautifully faux flat felled. 

The little black thread wisp was already on my ironing board from another project, not this one! The gusset is stitched with two rows of machine stitching and then serged over with a four thread serge. You will notice that it makes matching difficult for the side seams but CF matches beautifully. 

Check out the tower placket. It has double  "towers" and a bar tack at the corner. It is also extra long. I am thinking to accomate work gloves, maybe. There is a metal button halfway up the placket, again with logo and two buttons on the cuffs.  This way the cuff length can be adjusted for comfort by the wearer. On the outside of the opposite cuff is once again, another logo, just in case you forgot who made this great shirt. 

Here you can see the beautiful stitching on the button placket and the pocket. There is a pencil pocket inside the shirt pocket, all beautifully logo'd and topstitched. I dream of  topstitching and buttonholes like these. Sigh,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

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I hope you've enjoyed this tour of my friend's shirt. I found it pretty impressive and picked up some great details to try.  I will leave you with a pic of my beautiful, 8 foot tall Korean Lilac who just couldn't bloom enough! 5 years ago when we bought this house it was a scraggly dieing bunch of a couple of sticks which the owner suggested we pull out. But gardeners have faith and hope and give love. Look at her now!......Happy Sewing,,,Bunny

The Many Colors Blocked Shirt

 


Finally! Life has been so busy since we last spoke. Thank you for your patience, dear readers. I just got my last Prom Princess out the door and she was so beautiful, as they all were. There were some lovely Mother Of the Bride/Grooms as well, all beauties. Our time apart has also seen a vacation with my daughter all the way out to Colorado that was utterly fabulous and that filled me with memories, including the graduation and launch of my grandson from college, so proud. He has secured his dream job and we are just beaming for him. Lots of family business in between including mastering a new printer and computer. Syncing that with my camera and editing software took some time. You know how it is. Eventually I got back to sewing and finishing this shirt, McCalls 8001. That was a journey and eventually  a fun sew. It is so comfortable to wear and I really like it despite the rocky beginnings to our relationship!

I thought it might be a little too Jimmy Buffet but with heirloom entredeux trim things really toned down and it brought it into a likeable space for me. 

Pattern:

This is McCalls 8001, a full, boxy button down with a wide hem band and sleeve options.

 I love wide hem bands, who knows why. Fabrics recommended are all  drapey, as the pics show, except for a recommendation of poplin. I'd say my beautiful quilting cotton was covered. The pattern is definitely not hard to sew, as is, but introducing my trim also introduced heirloom techniques to use it properly. There is tremendous ease in the pattern so would recommend flat pattern measuring before deciding which size to cut. I cut the smallest size, XS, 4-6,  which has a finished bust measurement of 41 3/4 inches. I did no width adjustments and when adding my trims I made sure they kept the garment at the intended widths and did not add any additional ease. I would definitely recommend the pattern. It is not hard to sew, particularly if you have sewn a button down shirt before. I did adjust the length by shortening  the bodice a couple inches, partly for length and party to accomodate how much fabric I had in the blue color for the hem band.  While the garment is large and has a lot of fabric, the wide hem band on the fold gives weight that keeps it from having a floating away effect. 

Fabric:

This was the interesting part, and what a challenge! 

There were beautiful, directional plants going north and south. Then,  there were graduating colors, shading from dark to light, navy to pale yellow, from East to West, the easiest way to explain this. My idea was to have the plants point north on my bodice and the colors mirror imaged across the garment. After three days of painstaking play, a night's sleep gave me the answer. I decided to totally ignore the direction of the plants, which you can see are very busy and just concern myself with balancing my colors. This worked to a point. The only place I had to "cheat" was in the upper front bodice. To win this argument, I cut those pieces on the bias and then got them to match, at least with color. The fact that it  is bias has not affected the hang or wear or look of the drape of the garment. You can read all about the fabric issues in the previous post. 

Construction:

This really was no different than any other button down shirt. It has a collar stand and a button band. The hem is folded and therefore a double layer, giving the shirt some nice weight at the bottom. The entredeux trim you see criss crossing the garment was originally part of a much wider piece of an eyelet batiste border. The entredeux strip was cut from the border keeping a half inch border with the entredeaux. It was then sewn to the seam  line of the shirt with  entredeux lining up with the seam and using a straight stitch and fine thread. I stitched right up to the entredeux. That was then trimmed down to an 1/8th inch seam which was zigzagged thru the holes and around the 1/8th inch of seam, basically rolling the seam to the trim, classic trim to fabric heirloom sewing. Size 60 weight thread was used. The rolled seam was pressed toward the garment. On the sleeves I kept the full batiste embroidered edge and did the same process making for a longer trim  finish. 

 I did not want the sleeve just being big and decided to pull it up into a couple of tucks for more interest.  I just stitched the tucks down with the machine. I didn't have any more green buttons and adding mother of pearl white just wouldn't work, at least for me. I like the interest of the tucked sleeve and the feminine touch it brings. 

The back has a yoke which was done Burrito style. 

Care had to be taken with the measurements for the back pleat and the trim. I might have gathered this area but I do try to follow the pattern on the first go round. 

In Conclusion:

I definitely would recommend this pattern. I have worn it and had a big surprise. I was not expecting the comfort this structured pattern nor this quilting cotton provided. One day was particularly warm and this top was very comfortable to wear. There was no clinging anywhere and no skin exposed either. When I am dressing for heat, I generally am  not a one who grabs for a tank top. Give me something loose and/or flowey any day. I like the arm  coverage here and yet still have comfort. It is an eye catcher and the comments flowed,  all from men, even young ones! It's one thing to garner a compliment from a fellow sewist but quite another to have a 17 year old boy ring up your grocery order and then tell you "I really like your shirt. It's very pretty." Made my day!  

Happy Sewing!................................Bunny

Close to being stumped with this one!

 Don't go shopping at quilt shops, even if they are the high end types like Quilted Threads of Henniker, NH. With tongue in cheek, I will tell you why in a moment! I loved this store and sorely miss them. Their owner retired. They were filled with the most glorious textiles, including a small room of Japanese fabrics, oh , my. There were gorgeous garment fabrics as well, not many, but very nice quality. 

The above two pics are the last fabric I purchased at this gem of a store. Their colors and ombre effect blew me away. I saw a shirt, oversize button down, in its future. I found the pattern and it's time has come. Here I go ready to cut.

SURPRISE! The exquisite plants are directional, going one way up the warp of the fabric. The ombre effect goes a different way, dark to light across the weft of the fabric. I spent two entire afternoons trying to make this work. I was using my favorite button down shirt. I could not get it to work. I gave up and went digging for another shirt pattern, any. The fabric is a very nice quality cotton broadcloth so right there many shirt/blouse patterns didn't make the cut, too heavy, too structured, too quilty. Ugh. I kept looking. Eventually I found a second pattern. one sort of color blocked and oversized style. It was still a button down, too. 

I liked how I could color block the sections and maybe make this fabric work.  Another afternoon and more playing around. About an hour into it I made a decision. I ditched the idea of a solid back and decided if I put a seam down CB, this would allow me some leeway. It really didn't. Back to square one! I knew what parts of the textile I wanted where. It was the bodice that was giving me grief. Finally I decided I would not make any effort to be directional. It was just impossible.  Try again, no. Let's just go to bed and sleep on it. 

Next day I got up  with a Eureka moment. After giving up yesterday I decided to clean up a huge old cupboard I have in my sewing area. I found all my heirloom trims and so much more, lots of amazing things. I got it all organized, back in perfect order. Best yet, I got an idea and I think it will work.  Organizing and sorting has always brought me to inspiration. 

I cut the pattern pieces out paying attention to the ombre coloring only and as best I could. I totally disregarded the direction of the plants. The print is so busy, you don't notice much. I laid out my pieces as they would be worn.  Then I stared. 

Next move was to go back to the old cupboard and pull out my trims. I thought if I had something cohesive to pull the disparate colors and directions together it might be the trick. I dumped out my treasures and started to play. I definitely found this to be a good solution. 

This trim, at least 80 years old, as I know the full history of its source, looked lovely. It is a hand made lace from my hoarding great aunt.  But what you see above is not the final story. I will save that for the surprise. { In the end, I gave no regard to the directional print and was able to mirror the colors around the entire shirt. This involved bias cutting across the upper front bodice which has not affected its drape. More in next post. 06/03/25}At least I am happy and hopefully won't look like I am on my way to a Jimmy Buffet concert in my beautiful botanical print, which I actually wouldn't mind right about this mid February.  This top will have a collar and stand  and button band down the fron. The dark blue is a deep double hem. I'm excited and can't wait to show you all the results. Fingers crossed.

Oh, why not shop in quilt shops? Because this project  taught me that the fabric in quilt shops is designed to be cut up for quilts, not clothing. Think of this fabric being cut into squares or other shapes that are all different colors and once cut they perfectly coordinate, all from one piece of fabric.  Brilliant, right? This was never meant to be a garment. I'll show'em!

Happy sewing.....Bunny

A Fail but Wearable

 Oh, I look so silly, happy in this picture but this shirt is so full of mistakes, all pretty much my own. First, a little background. 

I am on a shirt binge. So many of us who have gone from career wear to a life of retirement really stumble through a lost land of what to wear. It's loaded with style mistakes, dissatisfactions and frequent temptations to just give up on the whole idea of ever looking put together again. Who has sweats on sale? 

Luckily, those of us who sew usually love fashion, fabric, and looking halfway decent and don't give up so easily. For us, it can take a while but eventually the evolution takes place and we end up in the place we have defined as the "new" us. 

I have figured out I love wearing, sewing and the style options of shirts. They certainly challenge my sewing skills, unlike many of the simple garments I see being made out there and that I never wore in my work life. A great shirt/blouse (who cares which is which?) is so damn versatile. It can be so comfortable and oh, the fabrics you can shop for and use! It can top off a corduroy pair of slacks or chinos or any kind of pants with great style and finish or just let you look pretty decent around the house doing around the house things. It does this far better than a tee and jeans. The way shirts look is good. So I have decided to really pursue my skill set as well as my wardrobe around shirts. You may have noticed the ones I've made lately and you will see more. 

I've been inspired in my shirtmaking journey by two women who have some serious skills in that department. One is Karen Euter.  Put her name in Youtube and watch her shirt videos. She has not been sewing long, people,  but she takes her sewing and learning seriously. She makes lots of shirts. She takes you on a journey inside each one. They are exquisitely finished inside.  Her button downs are incredible. The above flannel shirt is my attempt at one of the patterns she uses constantly,  Simplicity 1538.

The other shirt maker I enjoy is Kim from Stash Stitcher on youtube. While I have been watching her for some time she currently just finished a 5 part series on shirt making which she is a pro at.  I learned a lot from her. I particularly loved how she went about her bottom corner and hem treatment there. I learned something new for sure! But there is much to learn from her series. She is a mature woman who makes beautiful clothing and so very well. Here is a link to the series: Stash Stitcher Shirt Making Series   Kim has a great personality and teaches well. She knows how to sew all sorts of garments. Enjoy! 

 The back with the belt. 

So why is this shirt a fail? I just screwed up all along the way. I used what I had on hand for interfacing which I thought would be fine with the heavier flannel. It wasn't. 

In the pic at the very top you can see the button band flipping out, the collar refusing to go down or even bend, just wrong and too late to fix. I now have a selection of lighter interfacing I am experimenting with, courtesy dear sewing friend, Mary J. I will use it on my next shirt. Will you look at how I put my label on the outside of the collar. That was boastfully intentional and I think the powers above punished my brazenness with the continuing errors I made with this top. The label will be removed. 

I used a burrito method for the yoke. That went well. 

The good placket and buttonhole 

Sleeves went in the armscyes very nicely. Before that I did the lapped bindings in the contrast flannel and attached the cuffs. Then I did the buttons and BHs. At no point did I realize I had set my "laps" opposite on one sleeve than they way they should have faced. I ironed my new shirt, tried it on and realized the second cuff had the placket going backwards from the way it should have been going. It was folded the wrong way so put into the cuff the wrong way, of course with the BH now all stitched and cut.  This meant the button, when closed, left a twisted mess of placket and was hard to button as well. It also looked ridiculous. You can't see it in the pics but its awful and will be ripped out as soon as I am done with this blogpost. 

Whew, that's enough but you do get real sewing around here. You also get to witness my persistence and the fact that I don't do wadders. I've had one in the past 20 years that I can remember and it was a design feature the just did not work. Others complained as well about that one. 

ETA 2/20/2025: I forgot to mention the buttonhole thread debacle which I rectified by actually painting them. You can see this by actually clicking on "older post" at the end of this one. There I explain how I go thru the process of painting thread permanently. I have washed this shirt and the color change/paint held up perfectly, no color change or fade at all. 

 

I also had issues with buttonhole placement. I always start by placing the first buttonhole at my bustline and go from there. For whatever reason, I chose to use the buttonhole pattern strip to place the BHs. This ended up putting the first BH too high and in an odd place on my short upper chest and none on my bustline. I won't trust those strips again. I can't believe that at this stage of my sewing journey it was the first time I trusted one of these strips. I am short so never used them before and never will again. 

I still like my warm flannel shirt and comfy old corduroy pants (leftover from heavier days but so soft). Sometimes this just happens  and it is time to move on. 

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I'll leave you with an indulgent picture, more of a portrait. I am going to send it to my daughter as it's pretty authentic and I think she will like it. You know from reading my blog that you get front, backs, sides, details of my makes. I try to make them interesting but no graffiti walls are ever behind me! None out here in the woods! I have often thought, while playing photographer, why don't I take a picture sitting down? But you wouldn't see the garment well, so I don't. Well today I took one sitting down. What a difference, don't ya think?  I like the lighting on this one. ...............Bunny

I Painted Thread!!!

 This buttonhole above used to be medium  gray in color, well, at least the bobbin side of it which is what you see here. In my unbridled enthusiasm to complete this button down shirt, I had put the right brown thread in my beloved vintage Kenmore machine which matched what was used for construction in my Pfaff.  You see, the Kenmore does better BHs with far less aggravation. That enthusiasm knew that I had a medium gray in the bobbin but no one was going to see what was underneath the button band right?

Well, that not well thought out philosophy worked just fine until I completed all the buttonholes. This gave me backsides as you see above, gray and not matching. Ahh, that troublesome top collar band buttonhole, always the troublemaker! Of course it flipped out and was gray as the one you see above and looked ridiculous as all the other BHs were brown. I hated myself for the next 24 hours. I put the shirt aside as I was not thrilled about ripping about a buttonhole in such a prominent spot. Major ugh. The next morning, waking from sleep, I got the idea to "paint" the buttonhole. It worked out rather brilliantly as you can see in the top photo.  Below are the regular buttonholes on the front. 

That collar band BH is now the same color!  Here's what you need to accomplish the same.

* An Inktense ink color pencil in the same color or pretty close. I splurged on a 36 pencil pack some years back and have definitely recieved my money's worth. 

 

* Purell or other clear alcohol based hand sanitizer. This is your medium for painting with the pencil. It works better than water as it does not spread as water would. It helps the color go where you want it and stay there. It also dries quickly. 

* An iron to heat set your paint. Inktense pencils are made to be permanent, and they are, once they are set with heat. This can be done with your iron. I like to use a press cloth just in case there is transfer. 

How:

Put your buttonhole to be painted under some good light and magnification if you need it. 

Pour out a dot of Purell onto a jar lid or other palette type surface, the size of a pea at most. 

Take your pencil in the closest matching color. Make sure it has a nice sharp point. These pencils are good at keeping their points despite use. Dip just that point into the teensiest amount of Purell. 

Now go color your buttonhole, drawing right on top of the threads and being careful to not go beyond the threads. I did not find this hard. If you use too much Purell it could overflow outside the threads. I mean the teensiest dot of Purell is all that is needed. 

Let it dry flat. Proceed with other buttonholes as needed, being careful to not touch the previous ones. 

I wait 24 hours. Then I press the next day with a press cloth on a heat appropriate to the fabric for about 10 seconds.  That's what usually works for me but press as the fabric requires. Do a sample press on a scrap first to make sure you don't damage your fabric. 

Congrats! You have just painted your first buttonhole!

Once again, these Inktense pencils have proven to be a solid member of my notion family. I highly recommend. Valentine's is coming, sewing lovelies!

ETA 02/18/25: I have put my shirt through a normal wash, cool water and regular dryer. The button hole looks even better. It is still the dark color brown, no fading at all, but excess dry paint seems to have disappeared. 

My Crazy Vest

 

If you are a sewist and visit Pinterest and/or Instagram, you may have seen the garments made by a Russian knitter that combine tailored suits and beautiful sweaters. The link I have to her work is corrupt and I'm advised not to go there unfortunately.  The garments I saw were a combination of  exquisitely tailored women's worsted suits  and  the artist's  knitting skills from the bottom up, ending in tendrils midway, quite intriguing.  Since then, others on youtube have tried to imitate the process. I was so taken by it that I had to try it as well. 

None of those who tried the knitted  tendrils knitted them up into the garment. They all started with a sweater, as I did.  It took months for me to find the right sweater to go with my yardage, a wool blend, sort of tweedy.  It was all great fun, very experimental and in the end wearable. I knew it wouldn't be like the artisan knitter's garment but it would be mine.  

I had all sorts of ideas to get those tendrils up the garment. In the end, I would do it differently next time, having learned a bit. The machine was my friend here. I'll go thru my process with you. 

Pattern

For my pattern I wanted something really simple and found it in the Purl Soho Quilted Vest pattern. It is free and you can find it HERE.  My goal was a vest I could really wear to keep warm, particularly around my house. I've worn it a lot since it has been made. I changed the vest to have a slight v-neck and also straightened out the bottom hem edge and removed the curved side slits. 

Fabrics

The lining is an upcycle, or maybe a down cycle, depending on how you look at it! This print is a poly satin skirt that I made and wore to a winter wedding a few years back. There was a lot of fabric in this skirt. You can see the hand picked zipper, deeply tucked border on the hem and the lining in the skirt. It was full and box pleated and HEAVY. I wore it with a very scooped front and back black leotard top. It looked nice but I was done with it once the wedding was over. I kept it for the fabric and it's second chance had now arrived. 

The tailored part of this vest was a tweed wool blend, a soft black with little flecks of grey, light and dark. 

Here is the sweater, a classic cabled crew neck. What I needed for my vision was a sweater with a knitted band all around, not too deep or thin. That was for the hem.  Then I wanted some with cables and rows going up, the better to play with for tendrils. Having sleeves with the same cables would be a plus as would knitted cuffs to match the band. It took a while but I finally found this one day at Goodwill. No pills! and clean. 

I had to give a lot of thought to how this would work. 

Construction

I decided the woolen fabric would be quilted, the better to balance all the texture of the sweater part. I wanted the vest to be warm and the quilting required a batt of sorts. I also wanted to keep this as simple as possible. I started by eliminating the side seams by overlapping the pattern pieces. A piece of well washed flannel would be my batting. It would go throughout. I laid the flannel down then the wool face up on top. Next I drew in diagonal lines to quilt on. I did all that quilting and then drew more lines in the opposite direction, making diamond shapes.  I stitched all around the outline of the vest. I decided not to cut back the batting until I absolutely had to. I found this was a really good idea.  Keeping the flannel across the armscyes really helped stabilized the sewing into one flat sheet to work with. 

After the quilting was done it was deal with the sweater. Before I cut the sweater  anywhere, I did a line of stitches on either side of the the future cut to prevent unravelling. Since I need a broad swath across the back and to wrap around to the center front. I had to cut open the side seams of the sweater. One would go up center back, one front. Sleeves and full collar had to be carefully removed as well and set aside. Shoulder seams were opened.  This gave me two large pieces to play with around the bodice. My first step was to connect them at what would be the CB seam area. I overlapped them and stitched on top. Then I cut them back. I balanced the cables so it would all look nice and intentional. 

I made sure my knit hem would end longer than my wool hem. Next I started sewing straight lines at the side seams and in the middle but only about 2/3 of the way up the green. I wasn't sure what I would do for the tendrils yet. I just wanted to secure a flat base and it was when done. 

This pic above is actually stitched to the wool base. You cannot see the stitching at all. It nestles right into the knit. I made sure I stitched in the ditch, usually right next to a thin line or cable. Amazing how it hides other than a slight bit at CB where the pieces lap.

After a night's sleep it was time to face the interesting part, cutting those tendrils. I cut some large ups and downs across the whole piece. I stitched from the hem to the highest points. Then I took the scissors and cut them back. Stitch more, cut more, continuing always to the end. That was basically the method. I thought to myself if I did this again, I'd work out a way to use Steam A Seam and then cut. But how would I press and not ruin the texture of the sweater? Let me know your ideas. 

When it was all stitched on it was then stitched horizontally across the top edge. 

I used the edges of the cuffs to make the edgeing for the neckline.  

There are 3 bound buttonholes in the vest. This one, a bit fiddly, came out better than I thought. 

This hanging shot will give a better idea of the lining. It's understitched all around. The bound buttonholes have the lining handstitched all around.  There is a pleat, hard to see, going down the center back. The hem has a jump pleat at the bottom. 

I wasn't sure quite where the hem would finish. In the end I let the sweater hem hang about an inch longer and turned in the wool hem. Then I hand stitched the lining to the wool hem further up so the extra length of the lining would make a small pleat for vertical ease. You can see I needed to add  extra bit of fabric all across and that was fine. 

In Conclusion:

This was challenging and fun. It made me think. I thank this Russian knitter who inspired me and others to mimic her artistry, albeit a meager attempt. I've worn this quite a bit since it was made. It is nice and warm and I've gotten many compliments on it. Will I make another? Doubt it as I have seen another unique wool project I would like to try. We are so lucky that we access to such amazing inspiration in our immense digital world. There is so much in my queue. I feel blessed. I think I will do a post on some of my upcoming projects soon. Happy sewing............Bunny