Shirt Dress part 3 = completed

So I have been putting off hand sewing on my buttons on this shirt dress for two whole weeks now and decided last weekend that I really do have to get round to finishing this garment.

It’s very far from being a perfect shirt but as a first attempt I am reasonably happy with it. I do think I will wear this and it is really a prototype, since I am going to attempt several other shirts, but in more interesting fabrics. I bought lots of prints in the summer but it has taken me so long to finish this I still have them uncut. This has worked – kind of.

 As documented in my previous posts:
http://brackencrafts.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/burda-easy-shirt-dress-part-1.html

http://brackencrafts.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/shirt-dress-part-2.html

the front bands are imperfect. I managed to somehow get wrinkles in the fabric when I top stitched. I really do not know how I did this because I thought it was OK for two weeks and then suddenly noticed them. I made sure it buttons over these so they are not very noticeable.

I have no idea which way female shirts do up as opposed to male and since I am a fan of army surplus I tend to wear both male and female garments anyway and really what a stupid idea…….that girls do up differently to boys. I mean who came up with that? Whats the point? How stupid can you get? So as far as I am concerned with this shirt and every other fastening I ever make I am going to do it however I feel with no rules. I really cannot see the point of a mans top doing up the opposite way to a womans. Equality etc! So what I am rambling on about is I am going to always make my clothing button up so it LOOKs the best it can rather than follow any rules. To be honest this may do up the girls way. I really do not know.

And then at the bottom of the other button band I have a sort of turned up bit. Despite much steaming this does not really get much better. Possibly if it was a non-stretch woven I might have made a better job of this because this is a very lightweight stretch woven which is probably cotton which should make it very comfortable to wear but not so easy to sew.

 Unfortunately, as you can see I wore this before taking the photos hence got the back all creased. This is real life though, not a fashion blog!

Then the wrist openings ( no idea what the correct terminology is here) are clearly different lengths with one side being shorter than the other. Maybe that is why I get a small wrinkle in the right sleeve at the front when I wear it?

BUT I still am happy with this.

Partly its cos finally its finished and it has taken absolutely ages for me to make this. Also, though, I really will wear it. It’s the only shirt dress I have, but also because I actually quite like it. I did intend for this to be finished in the summer when in May/June I was dying of heat in my much thicker clothing and now its November and freezing cold but there that’s me. If I start another couple of shirts now maybe I can get them finished in time for next summer eh?

Also I have managed to use some of my vintage mother of pearl buttons. I inherited these from my Great Aunts who died when I was about 6 so approximately 1970. Well I know they are not vegan, and I do try to be a good vegan, but they are lovely and in the end I have not bought them, they are very old vintage buttons and what would happen if I threw them away? More than likely they would go to landfill and what a complete waste! I think there has to be a balance here. I would never buy mother of pearl, but in the end when its inherited, or even freely given or recycled why not? The planet matters too, and these buttons are very old and very beautiful.  And they make my shirt a bit quirky which I think it needs, else the imperfections would be even more obvious that they actually are.

I think for the patterned shirts I want to make, I would prefer not to bother with the pockets since I do not really use them and maybe to find a pattern with no front yoke cos without the pockets it becomes a pointless extra bit of sewing. Especially with a very patterned fabric since the front yoke will not be seen. I do like the fact there are no darts because one of my dislikes of women’s shirts is those darts they always have to put in. Men ‘s shirts just do not have them. Obviously if you are very curvey you may need this but I have a very straight-up-and-dow igure so I really do not need that extra shaping.

What I may do in fact rather than trace a completely different shirt pattern is use this one but join the yoke onto the bodice and add an inbuilt button band or should that be stand? I think it sounds familiar so probably yes it’s a stand. No idea why!

So anyway then retrace it all as one piece and make it simpler because I do like the fit of this very much. It does actually fit me properly in fact and I am wider over the shoulders than most patterns allow for but actually quite small everywhere else so when I buy RTW shirts unless I buy army surplus I usually have to buy one or two sizes bigger to accommodate my shoulders. This of course means the body of the shirt hangs off me. So it’s a very rare occasion I find a nice fitted shirt hence my intense dislike of them.

Of course now I am making my own I can probably learn to make it fit.

Right now though if I can just aim on getting the other bits – sleeve openings being identical and button bands/stands not wrinkling that is all I need to do. I can worry about the actually fit on a darted fitted shirt next year once I have perfected the rest. So anyway all in all I think this a success because I am going to make more.

Thanks for visiting

Bracken