Simplicity 2758 - Sewing from a Pattern

For two reasons, I'd like to document a basic, sew from a pattern project.  First, because I haven't shown the whole process here before, and someone might be interested.  Second, I am trying to keep better track of my time as I work. 

Since I've recently started a new job with a dress code requiring sleeves, I shall make myself some long-sleeved shirts! 

This time, the fabric on the left.

MATERIALS

My pattern is Simplicity 2758, view A.  It's a collared shirt, with buttoned front and bishop sleeves.  I like bishop sleeves!  I bought it at Goodwill for $0.99.  It's called a "misses" pattern, which usually means the apex of the bust is set too high for me, because I'm not a teenager anymore!  But that's a easy fix in such an ease-y top.

34 inches wide

I am stash busting, so I pull out two fabrics of which I have enough yardage.  One, a cotton sateen, is a lurid seventies print that appeals to me, probably because it reminds me of the couch in my childhood home.  (Is that a good thing?)  The colors are decent on me, though, and I think it'll be fun to sew.  It's a narrower width than I'm used to seeing, only 34 inches from selvedge to selvedge.  I wonder if the looms back then were hand-operated, and the narrow width is the width of a person's arm-span...?  Or were they automated looms but still working on a hand-weaving gauge? The other fabric, a synthetic, is a sheer with woven-in stripes and glints of gold metallic thread.  The exterior (face side) is scratchy, but the inside feels okay on my skin.  I think a sheer shirt will be pretty, if worn over a nice camisole. 

I intend to make the shirt in cotton first, to test the pattern. 

April 27th

The first night, I measure myself (36" bust, 28" waist) and figure out from the back of the pattern envelope that I am a size 14.  Pattern sizing is very different from ready-to-wear sizing... in RTW, I can be anywhere from a 4 to an 8, an XS to a L, depending on the brand; I don't even look at RTW sizes any more, because they have no stable referent.  In patterns, though, I'm nearly always a 12 or 14, depending on how fitted the pattern is.  In the bustier pattern, I needed the smaller size because my bosom is small, and the bustier is meant to be skin-tight, but in this shirt I opt for a more comfortable 14, and figure I can always take in the darts if I need to. 

On the instruction sheet, I underline the pattern pieces I'll need to cut out: 1 through 7.  Then I iron the tissue paper pattern sheets flat. 

Pattern tissue is pretty amazing stuff... it's sheer and light, and floats away if you breathe on it, yet you can pin through it without tearing it.  And when you cut it with scissors, you have to keep pumping the blades; you can't do that scissor-halfway-so-it-catches-and-then-just-push thing that you can do with other papers or even some fabrics.  You can and should iron it before you start cutting pattern pieces out.  I use my iron on the hottest setting but with no steam, and it works like a dream, and very fast.  Once all the creases are gone, it's less frustrating to cut, and I can do a neater job. 

Read the pattern pieces carefully!  This pattern has different front pieces for different cup sizes, so I can't just cut "piece number 1", I have to cut "piece number 1, size 14, cup size B".  As I work, I try on a few pieces, to make sure 14 is a good size for me.  I make sure to cut out the little triangle markers on the pieces.  Some people cut those as "outies", and do the same on the fabric, but I cut them as "innies" in the tissue paper, and transfer them to the fabric with chalk.  That makes the cutting faster for me, and means that I don't have little outies to trim off when I'm done.  Soon I have all my pieces cut out and ironed, and the un-used pieces folded back into the envelope. 

I probably work about an hour on this, but I'm also chatting on the phone and occasionally breaking to watch TV for a few minutes, so let's say a half hour of actual work. 

30 minutes

April 28th

In the morning before I head to work, I take some time to read the assembly instructions fully, so I know how Simplicity intends the shirt to go together.  The only change I'll make to their recommendations is that they suggest sewing the darts first, before shoulder or side seams, but I will make the shirt wearable before deciding on dart placement and depth.  The suggested darts on a pattern are just suggestions, as far as I am concerned: a personal fit is always a better fit!  Let's say 10 minutes for this. 

10 minutes

In the evening, I take an hour and cut out the pattern pieces for the cotton shirt.  It wouldn't normally take that long, but the narrow weave made a problem with the full sleeves.  The picture below shows the problem... the yardage is folded in half, with the fold at the top of the picture and the selvedges at the bottom.  The sleeve pattern laid atop the fabric is too wide!  If I had more yardage, I could unfold the fabric and cut out the two pieces separately, but the leftover fabric isn't long enough for that, so I need to piece the corner. 

"Piecing" means sewing scraps together to make a full pattern piece.  For this project, I confine the piecing to the back of the sleeve (the side with two triangle marks is always the back of the sleeve piece), so the seam will not be obvious.  For each sleeve piece, I take a scrap of fabric and sew it to the selvedge edge, fold it over and fell it down with the selvedge covering the raw edge.  Then I lay the pattern back on top of the fabric and finish cutting out the sleeve. 

Extra fabric sewn onto sleeve pieces

New sleeves pieces trimmed

transferring pattern marks with blue chalk

The last step before going to bed is to chalk the triangular marks.  Remember how I cut them out on the paper pattern?  So now I just rub chalk over them and the triangles are stenciled onto the fabric. 

1 hour

May 2nd

Tailor's tacks are another form of transferring pattern markings to the fabric.  Chalking the edges is easy, but there's always the possibility that the chalk (which can be blue or white depending on color of the fabric) may stain the fabric.  And it's only visible on one side of the fabric.  So for the darts, which I may want to move, and which are in the middle of the piece, I use tailor's tacks.  I take two little stitches, next to each other, through holes I've cut in the pattern.  I make the stitches loose so that when I pull the cloth pieces apart gently, I get long strands in the middle between the layers. 

With my scissors between the layers, I snip the stands so the two pieces can separate.  Then the stitches stick out of the fabric like blades of grass, indicating where the darts will be.

May 4th-6th

Over the next few evenings, I put the shirt together, though I fail to keep good track of my time.  (Like Duane MacLeod, I usually end up making "slow fashion", since the time-invested and time-away help me avoid mistakes.)  Here are some highlights (and low-lights, I suppose)...

Here I am with the main seams pinned, checking the darts.  They seem okay...

So I sew the darts in front and back panels and continue with the sleeves. 

Simplicity's sewing instructions call for the shoulder and side seams to be sewn, then the sleeve sewn, then the two fitted together, but I opt for a different order of assembly: first the shoulder seam, then the sleeves into the armscyes, then the side seam of torso and underarm of sleeve in one go.  Here you see the star-fish shape of the shirt before the side seams are sewn. 

The pattern instructions also call for a tiny sleeve vent, with some raw edges not finished.  Not being able to visualize how this will work, I do it exactly as described.  The end result is meh... next time I'll do a deeper slit and face the whole hing, or bind it with bias tape or something. 

To interface the cuffs and collar, I use some of the cotton interlining from when I cut the train off this wedding dress (I wash it first, to get the dust out).  My past experience with fusible interfacing bubbling after a wash has made me incline towards sew-in interfacing.  I pin the cuff to the sleeve, leaving a gap at the sleeve vent. 

I hem the bottom with hem tape, which is neat and pretty. 

Really getting into the 70's vibe of the shirt at this point, I add decorative embroidery to the front, next to the facings.  Boudica has a lot of rarely-used embroidery options.  She even has a "mirror image" function so that I can make the facings balanced.  It's fun to play with features of my machine which I usually don't use! 

"Turn of Cloth" at the Collar

When I made my brother's aloha shirts, I followed the instructions I'd found on various blogs and trimmed the undercollar a teensy bit smaller than the the collar, so the outside would wrap around the edges very minutely.  This is called favoring the seam to account for the turn of cloth when there are several layers being folded together.  (Debby Spence wrote an excellent article about turn of cloth and favoring seams in the July 2018/ Number 197 Issue of Threads Magazine.) 

Anyway, trimming the undercollar worked for the aloha shirts, but was a little finicky to do.  I was not sure I'd trimmed evenly, and all the pins were awkward.    This time, I try a slightly different tack. 

First, I prep the pieces.  Undercollar, sew-in interfacing, and overcollar are all the same size and shape.  The interfacing is not basted to either collar piece, so I have three free-floating layers.  I trace my 5/8" seam allowances to the corners of the collar and trim the interfacing away from the point, so I can turn it later without bulk. 

Then I lay the pieces down, with the overcollar and undercollar right sides together, and the interfacing on top of them both.  As I pin, I lift and curl the layers, so the piece on the bottom ends up traveling the long way 'round the top pieces, and the top pieces get shifted minutely.  I put the pins in as I bend the layers, and the end result is a collar sandwich that won't lie flat. 

I sew, press, clip the seams allowances, turn, and press again.  Sure enough, the one side of the collar is minutely larger than the other, and curves around the edge, so that when you look at the collar from the side, you don't see a cross section of seam and two fabrics, you just see one layer curving down and covering the edge.  I call that layer the top, and move on! 

Now, if I were doing a contrasting undercollar, I'd need to know ahead of time which layer was going to end up shorter.  I think that in the pinning stage I'd want to layer the collar piece on the bottom, then undercollar, then interfacing on top.  When I bent and pinned, the collar would appear shorter than the undercollar, but only because it would be traveling the longer distance in the curve... once I turned the thing right side out, the collar would be longer and the undercollar shorter (because the collar traveled the longer distance in the curve), and so the collar would wrap around the undercollar.  It's one of those brain-bending things that I have to do a few times to really understand it.  Despite evidence to the contrary, I'm really not a natural at spatial reasoning! 

I top-stitch the edge of the collar to match the cuffs and front facings, and then pin it into the collar stand, using the same gentle bend-and-then-pin method as before, this time to make the bottom of the collar shorter as it's sewn into the stand.  The goal of all this fabric massage is to end up with a collar that doesn't want to lie flat!  I want it to frame my neck by standing up and curving down. 

Alas, I don't get close enough to the facing of the shirt when I'm sewing around the curve of the collar stand, with the result that the collar stand ends up being a little longer than the facing.  There's a little sticky-outy-bit (it's a technical term!); look for it in the close-up shot of the collar later.  Next time, I'll sew this part with the zipper foot, to make a smooth transition.  Another deviation from the pattern instructions: Simplicity suggests stitching-in-the-ditch from the outside of the shirt to finish off the collar stand's facing on the inside of the shirt.  I don't do this because I suck at stitching in the ditch, and I like the invisible look of slip-stitching by hand.  Overeall, I am pleased with the way the collar turns out, but want to do more of them to practice. 

Thoughtful Button Treatment

For buttons, I go to my stash again, and choose some halo buttons, probably old Prims halo buttons from the 70's, so it's really turning into a retro shirt! 

(A cursory Google leads me to think "Prims" cover buttons might have been made by the Prym company, which invented the "cover your own" button concept for home sewists in 1946.  Prym later acquired Dritz and is still in business.)

In the picture to the right, you can see the pieces of the buttons.  The top row has the halo pieces.  The second row down has the metal inserts (silver colored).  The row under that has the backs with shafts (not very skinny shafts, which causes a problem later!), and below them are some circles of iron-on interfacing which I've cut to bulk up my fabric before putting it into the kit.  On the very bottom are two finished buttons, with fabric inside.  The buttons' packaging with instructions is long gone, but they are super easy to assemble: interface a circle of fabric a little larger than the halo; place it over the insert and push it into the halo; trim away any bulk that might get in the way of the backing; and push the back on until it's snug.  I used my teeth to simply bite the button to make it all snap shut. 

I plan my button-making carefully so that the fabric in any button will blend nicely with the fabric of the buttonhole and facing behind it.  Here's the finished shirt with me showing all buttons:

See what I mean?

Button placement is also a matter for careful planning.  Ideally, a woman should put one button at the apex of the bust (the widest part over the bosom), since that must not be allowed to gape open.  Then you space the other buttons out from there.  In this shirt, the dark-colored button is the first one placed, then the others are put about four inches apart at their centers, giving me five buttons down the front.  I don't put a sixth at the neck because I'd never use it, and it would only be heavy. 

And remember I mentioned the halo buttons having thick shallow shafts?  Yeah, they don't fit in the buttonholes very well at all, so I end up having to sew them with additional thread-made shafts to get the right fit!  When the shirt is unbuttoned, the buttons hang their heads like naughty children, but when it is buttoned, the facing of the shirt holds them out at the correct angle.  Meanwhile, the ones on my cuffs don't even fit in the buttonholes (too-small buttonholes by accident!), so I just sew the cuffs shut, and the buttons are decorative. 

FINISHED!

Overall, I'm delighted with this make!  The cotton and the loose fit are cool in the outdoor heat, but the long sleeves and sturdy sateen are warm in my over-air-conditioned workplace.  The colors are surprisingly nice on me, and give me an opportunity to wear my more lemony earrings. 



There are a few things I'll change before cutting the next version in the sheer fabric:

• The sleeves...
  1. Make the sleeve cuffs a little taller and a little tighter.
  2. Make the sleeve vent deeper and fully finished
  3. Lengthen the back of the sleeve for a more elegant bishop sleeve look

• The front darts
  
  1. The way they're set now, the fullness of the shirt's bosom is a little wide for my actual bust.  I want to move the vertical front dart an inch or two toward Center Front, rotate the side bust dart up into the armscye, and then merge the two darts into a princess seam.  Then I might narrow the newly made side panel just a bit for a better fit.