A summer shirt- just for a change of pace.

I do believe that I'm set for a while with regards to winter shirts.  Having said that though, I've been finding a lot of great knit materials at the fabric store lately which I couldn't resist, so I now have a quite a few pieces of beautiful fabric sitting in the stash mocking me.  I think that I'll  keep them until I start my summer sewing - I have quite a few ideas running around my head for cute summer tops.

In the meantime however...whilst browsing that little thing I like to call the vortex (otherwise know as the internet) I found a link to the sewing pattern that was used in the finale of season 3 of the Great British Sewing Bee.  One of my all time favourite shows.

The pattern is for a draped Japanese shirt  and it's available for free from craftsy.

Well I couldn't resist, I had to give it a try.  I've been reading a lot of blog posts about Japanese sewing patterns, but most of them don't look like they'd be very flattering for my figure so I've never really thought about sewing one before, but this one I liked....and well....its free!

                       

So anyway I printed it out and sticky taped all the little pieces of paper together.  The pattern does not come with any sewing instructions at all, but it wasn't too hard to figure it out.

I chose a fairly thin knit fabric with just a small amount of stretch.  Its teal green with little silver flecks running through it.  The pattern specifies woven fabrics, but I didn't have any on hand so I figured I would use this instead.

I cut the one pattern piece out and figured out how to put it together pretty easily,  It is just three seams.   I sewed it together first using a basting stitch which was a good idea as when I put it on..... it was too small!  I could barely get it down over my waist.  The top half is quite loose, but around the  waist and hips it was too small.  So I went back and sewed the one side seam with a minimum 1/8" seam and it's not too bad.  That is definitely a problem with this type of pattern, there is really very little room to play with for fitting.

I went back over the three seams (side seam and across the top of the two shoulders) with the overlocker.  As the fabric is a knit and doesn't fray I didn't bother with a seam around the bottom or on the sleeves.  What I did do however was ruch the top seam of the seamed sleeve so that the two sleeves are more even in length.

To finish the neckline I cut a facing piece for  both the front and back necklines and sewed it on.  I then overlocked the seam and finished with a row of decorative top stitching in black to hold the facing down.

Overall I'm quite happy with this one.  If I were to make it again I would add some extra width around the waist area, but otherwise its comfortable and I think a pretty good shirt.  Something slightly out of the ordinary.