Previously on The Tailored Shirt, we had completed the following items:

• Staystitching and Interfacing
• Prepare and Attach Front Pocket
• Shirt Front Bands
• Yoke and Shoulder Seams
• Prepare and Attach Collar and Neckband
• Prepare Sleeve Placket
• Attach Sleeve to Armscye, flat-fell armscye seams
• Sew Side and Sleeve Seams (with flat-felling)
• Prepare Cuffs
• Pleat Sleeves, Attach Cuffs, Topstitch Cuffs
• Rolled Hems along bottom of shirt
• Buttonholes (including front band, collar, cuffs, and sleeves)
• Attach all Buttons
• Final Shirt Press

This episode begins the collar.  I’ll divide it into two articles. The first covers the construction of the collar; the second concerns getting the collar on the shirt body.

As we discussed earlier, the undercollar is 1/8 inch smaller on all sides except for the side that joins the shirt. I pinned them together with edges matching, which meant I had to do a little work scooching the smaller piece to match up with the edges of the larger:

Then I stitched 5/8 inch seams around three sides of the collar, and clipped them to 1/4 inch, with some bevels at the collar points. Continue reading →

Up to this point, I have completed the following steps:

• Staystitching and Interfacing
• Prepare and Attach Front Pocket
• Shirt Front Bands
• Yoke and Shoulder Seams
• Prepare and Attach Collar and Neckband
• Prepare Sleeve Placket
• Attach Sleeve to Armscye, flat-fell armscye seams
• Sew Side and Sleeve Seams (with flat-felling)
• Prepare Cuffs
• Pleat Sleeves, Attach Cuffs, Topstitch Cuffs
• Rolled Hems along bottom of shirt
• Buttonholes (including front band, collar, cuffs, and sleeves)
• Attach all Buttons
• Final Shirt Press

Sunday, I got the front bands, yoke and shoulders taken care of. The play-by-play follows.

Sew-on Front Band (Left Side)

In an earlier post, I noted that McCall’s 2447 differed from the class pattern in that it has a separate, sew-on front band for the lefthand shirt front, where the buttonholes go on a men’s shirt.

After having constructed it, I’m convinced I’ve fallen into a “home sewing” trap – a pattern company offering a construction technique that’s intended just to get the project done, rather than produce a nice-looking final garment.

Continue reading →

Construction of the shirt begins. The following blog entries will read rather like lists of notes; that’s because they are. I’ll try to be as entertaining as I can.

Construction Order

I’m following my own construction ordering, but will mostly be hewing to the order of construction presented in the Pam Howard class. I am trying to group some tasks, such as doing all the interfacing at once. Also, following the advice in David Coffin’s book, I will be staystitching the shoulder and neck edges to stabilize the fabric.

Here’s my order of construction. I’ve highlighted the steps I’ll be completing in this article:

• Staystitching and Interfacing
• Prepare and Attach Front Pocket
• Shirt Front Bands
• Yoke and Shoulder Seams
• Prepare and Attach Collar and Neckband
• Prepare Sleeve Placket
• Attach Sleeve to Armscye, flat-fell armscye seams
• Sew Side and Sleeve Seams (with flat-felling)
• Prepare Cuffs
• Pleat Sleeves, Attach Cuffs, Topstitch Cuffs
• Rolled Hems along bottom of shirt
• Buttonholes (including front band, collar, cuffs, and sleeves)
• Attach all Buttons
• Final Shirt Press

More Pattern Modifications

I trimmed the outer edges of one of the collar pieces by 1/8 inch, to make it an undercollar piece. This was suggested by Pam Howard for proper “turn of cloth” on the complete collar. Next project, consider adding an extra pattern piece for an undercollar based upon the upper collar piece.

Continue reading →

Last night, I finally completed layout and cutting of the muslin for my shirt project.

Because I’m using a bedsheet, it doesn’t match the standard dimensions (45 or 60-inch between selvages) that you would expect from fabric off the bolt.  In fact, instead of selvages, it has hems.  So I did my own layout, only using the pattern instructions to be sure I was getting proper counts, and right sides/wrong sides for each piece. I was able to do back, sleeves, left front along one strip of the fabric selvage to selvage.

(Click on photos for larger versions)

Continue reading →