It Is Finished!

The Male Pattern Boldness Men's Shirt Sewalong, that is. At least for me. I finished both shirts that were on the plan by February 15th. That gives me 13 days to finish my dress/fluffer for the Vintage Sewalong.

Originally, I'd planned to give a blow-by-blow of how my progress lined up with the MPB sewalong, but since I'm not using the Negroni *and* my shirt choice is constructed slightly differently, it just made sense to finish up and then post.

First things first! I sewed a flat fell seam or three for the first time EVER. And while I think it's a nice way to finish a seam, I can't see myself doing it with twitchy fabrics. I WOULD make the seam allowance deeper, though, because 5/8" isn't really enough for me to work with and I have TINY fingers.

The short sleeve version is vintage fabric and it's plaid. Now *some* people would say not to take on plaid as a first attempt because it's so "hard" to work with. I found the opposite to be true. I LOVE working with plaid. Why? Because if the colors are bold enough and the blocks clear enough, it's like a freaking AAA TripTik pointing the way you're supposed to do. Sure, you have to exercise caution when cutting, but no more so IMNSHO than with regular fabric. Of course, I'm the girl who obsesses over pattern matching on EVERY fabric, so plaid was WAY easier for me.

I LOVE the way it turned out, don't you? There's only one little visible flaw. See if you can guess what it is! The pocket had to be pieced because I ran out of fabric.


Mad About Plaid Men

The next one I did was the long sleeve version. The fabric cost me $8 and the buttons $12. The fabric is a spandex/cotton(?) blend. It did NOT take well to being ironed/pressed. It just wouldn't hold it's shape unless I cranked the iron up to high. It's got a LOVELY drape, though. And it's soft, so my better half SHOULD wear it. He better.

The pattern on this one is also a plaid, but it's so tiny it was worthless to try and use as a guideline. This fabric also shrank and went off grain like CRAZY. I mean for REALZ. I had to lop off a TON on either edge after washing and *hanging* dry. God only knows what it would've looked like had it gone in the dryer.

Here's a nice close up of the cuff. I did the continuous lap but screwed it up a teeny bit when setting in the sleeve to the cuff. And yes, those buttons ought to have been gold-plated for how much they cost/cost over fabric, but they were totally worth it because they just MADE the shirt.


Fancy dancy buttons!

The one thing I LOVED about this pattern is that the sleeves are sewn in using the flat insertion method. When they're cut properly, this method is BY FAR the easiest nicest method for making sure the sleeves are eased properly. I hate setting in sleeves the *other* way with the fire of 10,000 suns.

As for whether or not I'd make this pattern again? Oh heck, yeah. I LOVE it. It's easy to put together, didn't cause me to curse the pattern piece gods OR the pattern instruction sheet gods, so it's all good. The deal is, you HAVE to have great fabric to pull this shirt off. Don't go with wimpy fabric that is boring. Next time I might do the yoke/collar in a contrast to the main shirt/sleeves just because I can. Which reminds me, I'm making up a much smaller version for my son's 5th birthday on St. Patrick's Day.

I've done a little research and it looks like this style of shirt was pretty popular in the 50s. It's been called an "Italian" shirt on an Advance pattern from the time period. It was made for girls, boys, women and men. The flat front shirt was also pretty popular as well with an asymetrical front yoke. I'm so on that.

MPB Sewalong Day 5!

So I was a total slacker on Day 4. Yes, yes I was. But I'm still up to speed with the rest of the gang. I totally need to add my pics to the Flickr group, though. Today we're supposed to start putting it all together, but it's Sunday and we rest on Sunday. Or at least we try. And we've got a get-together to go to this evening and it's a school day tomorrow and [insert justification here].

However, I have managed to construct the yokes/collars of two shirts *and* the sleeve plackets of the long sleeve version. There was a little bit of difficulty with the continuous lap (there always is in my experience), but overall, I'm happy. I wasn't able to do the cuffs yesterday other than cutting them out because the cuffs are inserted AFTER the sleeves are inset into the shirt. The McCall's 3087 uses a flat insertion method which I GREATLY prefer to the eased in method.

Another thing I've managed to do is to create a boy's version of the McCall's 3087. So I'll officially be sewing THREE men's shirts for the Sewalong. I know, I know. I'm crazy. Especially since I've got to finish my Vintage Sewalong dress including fluffer this month. This morning I woke up with the clearest of clear visions of how to make the McCall's 3087 into a boy's shirt. So I did. I'll be drafting it up and putting it in my Etsy shop for sale pretty soon. Or something. But only after I test drive the shirt I cut out for The Boy for his birthday shirt. Since he's a St. Patrick's Day baby, I always make him something themed for St. Pat's for his birthday. This year it's a shirt like Daddy's.

Back to yesterday though... I made an apron for the Etsy shop! But not just any apron. A retro repro of an Advance Pattern offered through Penney's in the early 50s based on Walt Disney's Cinderella. Cinderella is my favorite movie of all time and when I saw the pattern come up for sale, I snapped it up quicker than you can say "PATTERN SALE!!!" Of course I'll have pictures of everything coming up soon! Stay tuned!

MPB Sewalong Day 3

Okay dear readers and sewalongers, first a recap from Day 2:

I panicked when I realized that I didn't have enough fabric for Shirt #2! While the girls were at Scouts, I made a quick run to the local fabric mega mart where I originally scored the $2/yd fabric. I nearly passed out when I couldn't find the fabric right where I left it. Good news, though, there was still enough for me to get the remainder (long sleeves). The bad news is that the price had gone up to $4/yd. So the shirt was $4 and the sleeves were $4. Which brings me up to $20 for Shirt #2 including thread/buttons/tax.

No on to the pix from yesterday...

Cut It Out Already!

Remains of the day(s sewing)

Can you spot the piecing?

Pieces of Pocket

Today (Day 3) was a light sewing day since I'm making the McCall's 3087 and not the Colette "Negroni". I managed to sew the collar and the yoke and attached them to each other. I'm calling it a day for sewing. Pay NO attention to the spots on my ironing table. My poor Rowenta has an incontinence problem.

Check My Plaid!

Male Pattern Boldness Sewalong Day 2

OK, so yesterday I was a TOTAL slacker. Make a note, right here, right now that the term "totes" drives me UP A WALL. Totes are what we carry things in. And also a brand of umprellas and such. It is NOT an expression that means "absolutely" or "completely". I don't care that certain individuals - I can NOT call them "ladies" or "gentlemen" - use "totes" inappropriately. Maybe I'm OLD, but there's my line in the sand.

Day 1 of the sewalong was nearly gone by the time I was able to catch the blog post and see what we were supposed to be up to. I managed to sneak in a little time tracing the pattern out. I finished the tracing this morning before the Day 2 post went up.

Today we're supposed to cut out our muslin. I don't "do" muslins for the most part. It's a waste of fabric (at least to me) and time if I know that the size I'm using is the correct size. In this case, since it's a men's shirt and it's the correct size already, I don't really need to make a muslin so I'm using Fabric #1 for the short sleeved version. I'm making TWO shirts during the sewalong - one short sleeved and one long.

For #1, I'm using a vintage fabric of which there is JUST enough to cut the pattern out without facings. I'm musig over what I'm to use for facings. I've got some vintage cotton from a crib sheet which might fit the bill since it's white and the plaid background is white.

As a reminder, here's the fabric and pattern for #1: 

Perfect Plaid!



Short Sleeves!



Male Pattern Boldness Sewalong Update

Okay, okay, so I'm not running the sewalong, but I had to update on my progress before we begin. I'd already committed to making McCall's 3087 in a bright blue/orange/white plaid for the sewalong, but I needed buttons. So off I went to the local fabric mega mart. I didn't get the buttons (I forgot!) but I did browse the red tag fabric section. While I was browsing, I was lamenting the loss of the $1/yard fabrics from Walmart. For about a nanosecond. Because the WM fabric was generally second grade, you know? Not soft and nice stuff. While I was in the midst of my reverie, I spied a red tag. "$2/yard", it said. I picked up the bolt and the fabric was a nice shirting that had some stretch to it. With a color "story" of muted blue/grey and grey/green, I thought "This is PERFECT! for that shirt but in a "work" type". And for $4 total, who can pass that up right? That's cheaper than my local Goodwill, folks!

I was SO enamored of the fabric that I had to get Just The Right Buttons. I looked high and low and finally settled on these.

Let the record show that two buttons set me back $5.95 + tax while the fabric for the shirt was a mere $4 + tax. They just kill you with notions these days, I guess. We will not tell my husband that the buttons came from the "Belle Buttons" line nor that there's a woman's sillhouette on the card. No indeed. He already has issues about manicures and pedicures being "girly". Harumph. That's a rant for another day!

So now I'm sewing two identical shirts for the MPB Men's Shirt Sewalong. And I still need buttons for my original fabric choice! Whoops! Good thing my pattern got here today. I'd been biting my nails waiting for it.

MPB Men's Shirt Sewalong

Pattern acquisition SUCCESS!!!

So I totally had to get my hot little hands on a copy of the same pattern that Peter has with that funky front. Etsy, how I love thee. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? So longing for the same pattern is not wrong, is it?

Anyhow, the pattern has shipped and I expect it to arrive in the next day or so. I'm so excited to make the short sleeved view in the orange/blue vintage plaid fabric. What's weird is that blogger won't let the pic use the "transparency" that it was saved as. Instead, it has a black background... Meh. Just the normal blogger weirdness I guess.

With a sewalong here, and a sewalong there

Here a sewalong, there sewalong, everywhere a sewalong...

This "Old MacDonald" has a whole lot of sewing going on.

For the Vintage Sewalong of 2011, I chose a mail order pattern from SewMrsP's etsy shop. I'm using a peachy-fuschia stretch cotton satin for the top and a border printed cotton for the skirt. I've had to draft a skirt yoke that fits and I had to fiddle with the top part a bit, but overall, an easy one to make. I've got the fashion fabric pinned together on my dress form as we speak.

For the MPB Men's Shirt Sewalong, I scored this great plaid on ebay. I'm not sure yet which pattern I'm going to make it in. I might make a father/son version if I've got enough fabric. It's an actual vintage piece of fabric, so depending on the pattern I chose, I might use it for the Sewing Through The Decades sewalong.

Speaking of which, I haven't a clue what I'll be sewing for that. I'd like to try my hand at some 60s and 70s since I haven't done any of those. And I've got a 1915/1916 pattern that I've got fabric all picked out for, so I can start with that or maybe end with it since it's a fall style.

In preparation for all this sewing madness, I've been cleaning out my sewing "space". As you know, I'm purging patterns. And I promise! I'll add them to my  etsy shop soon. I've also got a ton of "extra" fabric that I'll want to unload as well. What do you think of bundling  smaller bits (fat quarters or less) together for childrens' sewing projects? Do you think anyone would want that?