Long Sleeve Knit Shirt

I've been looking at shirts that work with mid-rise pants, the kind that seem so popular in stores.  As everyone else has already figured out, they don't work well with shirts that are supposed to be tucked in.  So, much of my winter wardrobe is in need of changes.  T For fabric, I choose a cotton-polyester interlock.  This fabric is easy to work with, durable, and warm for winter wear.

 The usual sort of very loose tops don't appeal to me much.  I can see why y'all wear them, but it's not my style and it doesn't look good on me either.   I went looking for some other sort of solution and found Kwik-Sew 4216.  This looked like an interesting compromise between a fairly fitted top and one that would work with the despised mid-rise pants.  It has a fairly fitted top, a waist seam at the true waist and a peplum.

The pattern envelope show tops in interesting prints, but I chose a plain solid fabric, perfect for embellishment.  A shirt neckline is a perfect place to add embellishment, in this case machine embroidery with a pattern from Embroidery Library called Celtic Diamonds neckline. I used the V- neck version.

It's important to get the embroidery lined up just right.  Using a template, a 100% scale version of the design on paper helps a lot.  As you can see, I did the embroidery before sewing the shirt together.

The peplum offered some other options for embellishment.  The asymmetric hemline is one of the attractions of the shirt, so why not emphasize it?  This simple built in decorative stitch did the trick.

How did the shirt turn out?  It does work quite well with the mid-rise pants and gives me some wardrobe options.  I wish I'd cut it to a smaller size, however.  It worked well enough I might give this pattern another spin later.  It has a short sleeve version, which could work well for a summer shirt.

Come back next week and see what sewing happened at my house over the holiday weekend!

Mastering the Continuous Lap

The continuous lap is the most common way of finishing a vent on a long sleeve shirt with traditional cuffs.  There are a few tricks to getting it right and that's what this blog post is all about.

To begin, cut the continuous lap just a little longer than the pattern calls for.

The exact length required depends on the length of the vent.  If you cut the vent just a little longer than the pattern calls for, the continuous lap will be too short, which is a mess.  With a longer lap, you can just cut off any excess at the end.  Since this is a small pattern piece, finding a little extra room to make it 1" longer is usually no big deal.

Step 1 is to cut the vent, using the traced pattern markings.  For best results, the cut needs to be straight and correctly oriented, no big deal if the traced markings are right.

Step 2 is to pin the lap to the vent.  It's important to put the RIGHT side of the vent fabric next to the WRONG side of the sleeve.  Yes, this is very different from the usual right sides together.  The seam will be 1/4" on the lap and 1/4" on the sleeve at the ends of the vent, tapering to almost nothing (1/16" or so) at the center.

Here's what the seem should look like when sewn:

Be careful that the seam is still on the fabric at the top of the vent and that there are no tucks or creases.

Turn the lap to the right side of the sleeve and press.  Also press in a 1/4 hem in the continuous lap on the side where it isn't yet sewn.

Pin the lap on the right side of the sleeve, tucking the hem and the first seam into the lap.  Be sure that the edge of the lap is 1/16" to 1/8" beyond the original seam.  The idea is that the first and second seams should be on top of each other.

Sew the second seam of the lap right on top of the first.  Be very careful to catch the top of the vent in the lap and to not have tucks or creases in the top.  Yes, it's possible to make this happen.

As the last step, pin the side of the lap away from the sleeve seam under the sleeve.  You are now ready to sew up the sleeve and attach the cuff.

Come back next Saturday for more fun with a sewing machine!

Bright Shirts for Winter

It's starting to look a bit like fall here in the Tennessee Valley.  One of these days, the breathless heat and humidity of summer will give way to cooler temperatures, possibly with some tornadoes along the way.  It's time to think about refreshing my winter wardrobe for a new season.

The basis of my winter wardrobe is going to be jeans and brightly patterned collared shirts.  I have some shirts, but unfortunately, most of them don't quite fit any more.  I need to make some new shirts with some modifications so they fit me better.

I just happen to have a nice collection of cotton prints in my stash, all in appropriate lengths for making shirts.  I know all you quilters love fat quarters, but I buy my cotton prints in 3 yard lengths, which gives me a lot of flexibility for what to to with them.

I bought nearly all of this fabric when I was traveling, because there's limited resources in my hometown.  The lovely Hawaiian prints are from Fabric Mart in Honolulu.  They have various locations on Oahu, all with lovely fabrics.  The dragon print are from the Calico Cat in the Kaimuki district of Honolulu.   Others are from Kaimuki Dry Goods, also in Honolulu, High Fashion Fabrics in Houston, and SR Harris in Minneapolis.

So... which of these lovely fabrics to use first??  How about the one with the chameleons from SR Harris?

The pattern I'm using is McCall's 8053, which has been out of print for quite a while, however, McCall's 7629 is similar.

One of the problems with the older editions of this shirt is that the sleeves are not quite big enough around.  A second issue is that the shirt is too small over my hips.  To fix these problems, I added 1/2: on each side of the sleeve, tapering to nothing at the cuff.  I also added 1/2" to the front and back, expanding to 2" at the hips.

The collar on this shirt calls for the inside of the collar to be hand sewn to the shirt.  That's not fun.  Instead, after sewing on the collar, I pressed a crease about 1/2" from the edge of the inner collar.  After pinning, the collar is sewn on the outside, for a neat appearance.

After completing this shirt, I made two more.

This one is a lively Hawaiian print featuring plumaria and hibiscus.  The fabric is from Fabric Mart.

I just couldn't pass up this fabric with jellyfish from Kaimuki Dry Goods.

Come back next Saturday for a look at finishing long sleeves using the continuous lap, a traditional technique for traditional blouses such as these.