Elvis has left the building

I've spent today warm and snuggly indoors - can you believe it's been snowing in England today?  It's supposed to be spring!  I've been immersed in changing the collar on the shirt I made my husband following his comment yesterday that it was 'a tad Elvis'.  Using one of his many linen shirts as a guide for size I redrafted the collar piece and set about remaking the collar, although I wouldn't have chosen to remake the collar the new one has accidently turned out better.  When I started on this project I bought some light woven interfacing specifically for the shirt as I thought it would give a little more body to my linen which has a fairly open weave.  However after interfacing my collar stand this (third!) time I realised there just wasn't enough left for the collar piece, so I looked to see if I had any more in my stash to find that I did.  However this wasn't a woven interfacing and was much more lightweight, being that I didn't want to leave the house I used it and it has given a much better finish for this particular fabric.  The woven interfacing had been used on the 'Elvis' collar and it did look a little stiff considering that a linen shirt is inevitably casual in style, this lighterweight interfacing is more appropriate and has given a more relaxed finish.  What great about this is not only that it's a better finish, but also I never really got the point of different types of interfacing and now I do.

The second happy accident with the collar is that when my husband tried it on yesterday we found that it was too tight to ever be buttoned at the top, now neither of us were too bothered by this as again the shirt is casual and will always be worn with the top button open.  However, it's nice to get it right.  As I had already trimmed the seam down to 1cm where the shirt joins the collar stand I decided that rather than doing the same to the collar stand piece I would continue as usual with a 1.5cm seam allowance.  This way the collar is a tiny bit looser, but just enough so that it can be button comfortably.  They say that you learn best from your mistakes and today has been one of those days.

I have now finished the shirt except for the buttons, our local town has a small fabric shop with a limited selection of button but Tuesday is market day and there is a regular stall with a larger selection of buttons so I thought I'd wait until tomorrow.

In the meantime have a look at the work in progress, I'd love to know what you think.

This is the 'Elvis' collar version, not particularly massive, but I want this shirt to be worn and it wasn't going to be.

Redrafted collar piece, I chose not to bother with separate upper and under collar pieces and just used the iron to ensure that the seam fell to the under collar.

Elvis has left the building - the new smaller collar

                      Just the buttons left to do, I might make the sleeves a bit narrower next time.

I'm pleased with how the cuffs turned out, I made a bit of a mistake with the placket and made it too  long but I think I can get away with it.

Can I Call Myself A Shirtmaker?

Do you remember I said I was impatient? The morning after my last post I decided that the only solution to my shirt making problems was to locate one of the Kwik Sew patterns recommended for the Craftsy Classic shirt class and to start again. This was somewhat frustrating as Kwik Sew patterns are not very popular in this neck of the woods although my search did lead me to find a couple of fabric shops that I didn't know of and that can only be a good thing. I found that one of my favourite fabric shops Abakhan in Manchester supplies Kwik Sew so I set off determined to be quick and not buy the entire shop as usual. Within an hour and a half I was back home with my new pattern and some new linen to be washed.

I've spent a lot of quality time with Pam over the last few days and have watched some parts of the class many times and I do now have an almost completed shirt. In theory I only have to hem the shirt find some buttons and tackle the much feared buttonholes. However, my lovely husband who I've made the shirt for has decided that the collar is "a bit Elvis" for him. As he's a creative type he rarely has to wear a formal shirt for work and favours a polo or more casual linen shirt. This pattern is to be fair a classic shirt so not really Elvis like by most standards, but by his it is so I think I'm going to have to either adapt the existing collar or more likely start it over again.

I plan to keep going tomorrow, hem it and redo the collar. In the meantime I need to search for some buttons. I may even have got my act together enough to post some photographs.

Why I should do as I'm told

I've already posted about how much I've been enjoying The Classic Tailored Shirt online class from Craftsy, but what I haven't told you is that I couldn't get hold of the suggested pattern.  When I say couldn't get hold of it, what I actually mean is that I was too impatient.  The lovely Pam gives a choice of three patterns for this class, they are Kwik Sew 3555,3586 and 3422 so why did I buy Vogue 8759?  Well I could tell you that it was because the patterns looked similar, but the real reason is I didn't want to wait for the pattern to be ordered in.

I was doing so well, my collar was looking great although I had trouble with the part of the collar band where you have to cover the raw seam at the edge of the shirt - (I may send Pam a message via Craftsy about this and let you know what she says).  Other than that I was progressing nicely and my shirt at that point looked very professional.

However the inevitable happened once I got to the placket, my pattern has a two piece sleeve and a sort of grown on placket as opposed to the Kwik Sew one piece sleeve and separate placket. I thought that I'd watch Pam's method and read the Vogue instructions and work it out.  Hmm, it wasn't so much worked out as cobbled together, the outcome wasn't great on the inside but the outside looked passable so I carried on to the second sleeve.  Only to find out that I'd cleverly made two left sleeves, don't you hate that?  Well fortunately I still had lots of the black linen left so I thought I'd finish off the one sleeve and then start over again with the second.  Soldiering on I got to cuffs and this is when I threw in the towel.

My cuffs are not like Pam's cuffs, mine are in two pieces and the Kwik Sew cuffs are one piece folded over.  However having read the questions on the Craftsy platform it transpires that one of the suggested Kwik Sew patterns are the same so Pam has addressed how to work with this type.  Hooray - I thought I can plough on through only to find that the width of my cuffs is shorter than my sleeve edges.  I had basted my pleats, so I don't know where I went wrong.  Now if I had bought one of the suggested patterns I could ask where I'd gone wrong, but as I'd gone off piste I'm done for.

I've packed away the ironing board, tidied up my sewing table and am writing this feeling very cross with myself.  I'm not sure that there's much point in continuing, cutting out and resewing a correct sleeve and attempting to stuff a sleeve that's about 2.5cm's too big into a cuff.  Even if I can get it to work it's not going to look good and the whole point is to learn how to sew well.  I think I should treat my work over the last few days as a lesson partly in how to make a classic tailored shirt and partly in being more patient and doing what I'm told first time.

Now, I wonder if there are any fabric shops in North West England that stock Kwik Sew patterns?