Following the pattern acquisition from eBay, there was a couple purchased from Simplicity.com, New Look patterns that looked promising for over shirts. The one used for this shirt was 6449, which, as it was designed to be an overshirt as well as a dress, has more ease. My shirts so far are around 42" in the hips. The popover shirt has barely enough ease, as much as the camp shirt, but the button down shirt (with the too-short sleeves) has the least. My hips measure just under 40". In other items, 42" might be enough ease, depending on the style and fabric. In an overshirt that may be worn over a couple of layers of clothing, 42" is not enough. This shirt, in a size 16, has a finished hip measurement of 45", according to the info on the pattern itself. Did you know that the current big four pattern style is to put the actual measurements on the pattern pieces? That saves us from measuring and doing the math.
This shirt used 2.5 yards of Hokkoh Ternion Lawn, 44" wide (a mere 42" after prewashing), 100% cotton, purchased from the Confident Stitch for a total of $52.50. As I wrote in my last post, it is the good stuff, a Japanese lawn so light it floats. See this Seamwork post for information about sewing cotton lawn. It is a lovely print, with all my favorite colors in it, green, blue, black, and khaki on off-white.
It is quite soft and light but a bit crisp at the same time. The pattern printed on the fabric does not follow the grain, a problem that was somewhat solved when cutting but still popped up during the sewing. Any crookedness is the result of sloppy cutting or unaccounted pattern quirks. One side of the neck needed to be trimmed 1/4" to have the collar sit at the same spot in the pattern. The collar is sewn on with a 3/8" seam, something to note in the future when stay stitching the neck.
Before cutting, 2 1/2" was removed above the waist and 3" above the hem to approach a 30" length. That should be tunic-length on me. With the fronts, the back, the yoke and yoke facing (my addition, in a poly-cotton lining fabric) and the pockets cut, sewing began. The pockets call for ribbon trim--a feature I did not notice before beginning the shirt. It is amazing that though there is only one spool of 3/8" ribbon in my stash, it happens to match this fabric.
Once the pockets were trimmed and sewn on, the shirt yoke, fronts, back and yoke facing were assembled with no problems. The back is pleated before attaching it to the yoke, but the pleat is not a full box pleat. It is more like two small pleats that form a faux-box pleat. This pattern calls for top stitching above the seam between the back and the yoke. It was a simple modification to seam the yoke facing to the shoulder seam allowances and pin the folded facing to the back seam. The top stitching secured it in place, avoiding the burrito method. Not that the burrito method doesn't work, it is just more trouble to me to pull the entire shirt body through the armhole than it is to either hand sew or top stitch one seam.
Next, the collar band (mandarin-style) was cut out and interfaced. This is the piece that has only a 3/8" seam allowance. Thank goodness I got trapped watching a (thankfully silent) sewing video about this pattern and wondered why they kept specifying sewing a 1 cm seam.
Cutting out the cuffs, button tabs and continuous lap pieces took ages. That is mainly because I was matching the print, which doesn't run on grain. The painstaking effort should pay off in appearance. Cuffs were modified to be a bit deeper and not as large around--2 1/2" deep and just short of 10" around. This meant deeper pleats in the sleeve and a tuck at the sleeve seam to make the sleeve fit the smaller cuff. As with the body side seams, the sleeve seams were french seamed. As with the collar, cuffs were hand sewn down on the inside prior to topstitching. Of course, no matter how many pains taken, something isn't right. The continuous lap on one sleeve wasn't folded under as it should have been. It's going to stay that way, since the seam was trimmed and topstitched before the mistake was apparent.
After the cuffs were topstitched, the sleeves were attached. It only took one go for the sleeve insertion this time, using my one row of basting method. The sewing didn't go quickly, but it went well. The seam allowance was serged after double stitching the armhole. Why not? My rtw shirts have serged armhole seam allowances. The bottom is hemmed with a narrow hem. The button/buttonhole plackets are apparently not interfaced since they have 3 folds of fabric. However, this fabric is so soft, it needed interfacing. Due to the crooked print, there are still 3 layers of fabric in the placket, with the interfacing placed 1/4" in, the fabric folded over the interfacing and stitched down, securing the interfacing while the garment is being constructed. The plackets are about 1 1/8" wide with prints that almost match. Also, the sleeve tabs, -- this pattern has sleeve tabs!
The next time I make this pattern, which I hope will be soon, I will add enough to the back to make the pleat a full size pleat. Also, maybe I will add a hanging loop above the pleat. As it was, I almost didn't have enough of the 2 1/2 yards of fabric left for even that small additional piece.
That's all that was left after I pieced together the tie belt. The belt might not ever be worn, but it looks ok, considering it has 4 pieces instead of two to make the length. There was less than a yard of the spool of thread. This shirt uses a lot of thread.
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