Unselfish sewing: a Colette Negroni shirt
Wow, it's been a while since I posted a me-made item! However, I'm back at it with a bang in the form of an adapted Colette Negroni.
I decided to make my dad a shirt for Christmas, which I did. Unfortunately, we both have the build of a body builder and now the shirt is a tad too small. (damn you, patterns without finished measurements).
Even thought the measurements on the pattern envelope compared to the measurements of the borrowed shirt put my dad in a Large, the shirt was quite to small, so next time I'll need to go up one or two sizes. Something obviously went wrong.
I hope to pass it on to my brother/boyfriend/uncle in the hope of still making someone happy with it!
I promised my dad a new shirt and he's all excited about all the fabric options now he gets to pick them himself.
Ah well, it was a good training opportunity.
Now let's talk shirts.
A collar with a stand
I started with the Colette Negroni, which is a very basic shirt pattern. The collar comes without a stand and the upper button closes with a loop. My dad is very much a classic shirt type, so I knew I had to turn that floppy collar into a proper collar with stand.
Facings & button placket
Since I switched to a collar with a stand, I also wanted to do a proper button placket on the front of the shirt. Again I used the tutorial by MalePatternBoldness. It was a very straightforward job.
Materials
Fabric: cotton poplin (De Strik) You might recognise it in these outfits. Buttons: from stash (yay!)
Construction process
It might surprise you, but I've never made a proper shirt from scratch before. I must say that I loved making it. It's very technical and requires some seriously origami skills (I'm looking at you, sleeve placket)
I feel like making a shirt is really starting over again in terms of construction processes. With dresses, skirst, tops... there's a very logical to me order that I'm used to. To get a clean finish on a shirt, you need to change this order of working a lot and it really shakes things up.
During construction everything went rather smoothly, except for the armholes. You need to sew those using a flat felled seam and I couldn't get those little seam allowances to lie falt, making it a very tedious job. I've also used my seam ripper about 200 000 times in the making of this shirt. 
If you want to make a shirt, I really recommend the Sew a Yoke the Easy Way tutorial by Russel Conte of the Sewing Arts Center. I tried to get my head around the tutorials in both the Negroni instructions and on the Sewalong by MalePatternBoldness, but it wasn't until I found this video that it started to make sense.
Other piece of advice: breathe.
Happy sewing to all!
A collar with a stand
I started with the Colette Negroni, which is a very basic shirt pattern. The collar comes without a stand and the upper button closes with a loop. My dad is very much a classic shirt type, so I knew I had to turn that floppy collar into a proper collar with stand.
Facings & button placket
Since I switched to a collar with a stand, I also wanted to do a proper button placket on the front of the shirt. Again I used the tutorial by MalePatternBoldness. It was a very straightforward job.
Materials
Fabric: cotton poplin (De Strik) You might recognise it in these outfits. Buttons: from stash (yay!)
Construction process
It might surprise you, but I've never made a proper shirt from scratch before. I must say that I loved making it. It's very technical and requires some seriously origami skills (I'm looking at you, sleeve placket)
I feel like making a shirt is really starting over again in terms of construction processes. With dresses, skirst, tops... there's a very logical to me order that I'm used to. To get a clean finish on a shirt, you need to change this order of working a lot and it really shakes things up.
During construction everything went rather smoothly, except for the armholes. You need to sew those using a flat felled seam and I couldn't get those little seam allowances to lie falt, making it a very tedious job. I've also used my seam ripper about 200 000 times in the making of this shirt. If you want to make a shirt, I really recommend the Sew a Yoke the Easy Way tutorial by Russel Conte of the Sewing Arts Center. I tried to get my head around the tutorials in both the Negroni instructions and on the Sewalong by MalePatternBoldness, but it wasn't until I found this video that it started to make sense.
Other piece of advice: breathe.
Happy sewing to all!