Bug Shirt

I have bugs on my shirt! 

I was so excited to make this shirt! I got the fabric on my trip to London, England last year from Joel and Son. They have the most incredible collection of fabrics I have ever seen! If you ever get a chance to go, I definitely recommend it! Being from Canada, and the with the British pound being almost double the Canadian dollar last year, it was a huge splurge! For this shirt I used a Built by Wendy Simplicity pattern 4112. The Built by Wendy patterns were some of my favourites, its really too bad they don't have them anymore.

I almost didn't have enough fabric, I had to be really careful cutting, and I couldn't really match too much of the print. I would have needed double to fabric to match the centre front, and I can't even tell it doesn't match so I'm glad I didn't bother. I really just made sure it was on the same level and was going to flow relatively well from left to right.

The shirt was actually pretty quick to sew up and the fit was great! The only thing I would do next time, would be lower the centre front neck a scant half inch, since it sits a bit high on me.

I did flat felled seams everywhere except for the armhole seam. I usually would do a flat felled seam on the armhole, but with the fullness it was going to be difficult, but not impossible. The real reason I didn't do it, was because with a flat felled seam I would press the seam allowance toward the body, but it looked much better pressed toward the sleeve. It seemed to fill the gathers on the puff sleeve, so I just serged it.

For the collar I added in a pretty stiff interfacing. I like the crispness of the collar and it stands up really nicely. I had trouble with the CF placket. The placket is created by folding the fabric over twice, so that meant a layer right side facing up was sitting right below the front of the shirt. So all the bugs were showing through to the front, and it was looking pretty bad. I debated weather or not to interface the CF, but since I came to this problem I decided to add interfacing. I added 2 strips the width of the finished placket, one directly behind the fabric that shows in the front, and a second one behind that. This really helped hide the pattern from showing through. I was afraid it would make it too stiff, but in the end it was just right!

Originally I was planning to use white buttons, but I didn't have any. I loved these flat purple ones I had but I thought they might be too busy, with the already busy fabric. But they were actually way better than the white! They blended right in and were the prefect colour to match.

And..... I got new glasses! I couldn't resist showing them off! :P

I've been sewing and knitting up so many things lately, I'm thinking I might have enough to post every Sunday! So sometime you might see more than a post every two weeks! Thanks for reading! :)