Cashmerette Harrison Shirt

At the end of last year I attended the Cashmerette Holiday Tea party in Boston.  It was so much fun meeting up with real life sewists....the only thing is I felt like a bit of a fraud since I'd never actually sewn a Cashmerette Pattern.  I figured it was about time to change that and I bought one of their patterns whilst I was there.  I decided on the Harrison button up shirt as I had always been intrigued by the double princess seams.

I wanted to start with a wearable muslin and pulled out some plaid flannel from the stash.  Next figuring out what size to use.

Based on my Bust measurement of 42" I should be either 12 G/H cup or a 14 C/D cup.  I know that generally I need to size down on the shoulder region and my bust is very large so I decided to start with the 12 G/H.

My waist measurement is 37"and my hips 43.5" which puts my in between a 16 and 18 for waist and  12-14 for hips.

At this point I looked at the finished garment measurements and based on the amount of ease I wanted I decided to just cut the 12 G/H around the bust grading out to a 14 at waist and hips.

I did however want to use a size 14 for my upper arms so I used most of the armhole cut to size 12 but extended the underarm to the size 14  so I could used the size 14 arm pattern piece.

The main change that I had to make to my pattern pieces was to remove length.  the size 12 has a back length of 26 1/4"but my back length is only 24"so I removed a total of 2" from the pattern length at the shorten lengthen line.

For possibly the first time ever I actually traced out most of my pattern pieces.  Normally I find I'm in the upper ranges for a pattern so it's easy enough to just fold the pattern in to the desired size, but this time I was using the smallest size and it just got too bulky folding the pattern so I went ahead and traced it.

I cut out my fabric trying very hard to get plaids to match at least horizontally (its impossible to match around the top of the princess seams so I just concentrated on matching from the waistline down and across the front.

I then basted the main pieces together to see how it all fitted.  I was happily surprised that it was a pretty good fit.  I did some minor tweaking to the princess seams in the front, but in the end it wasn't enough to justify changing my pattern.

I went ahead and sewed the shirt together, following the instructions.

  The collar was put together sightly differently than I would normally, but came out nicely in the end. I wasn't a big fan of the two piece placket on the sleeve, I prefer a single piece, however it did come together nicely in the end so no issues.  If I were to sew it again I'd probably convert these pattern pieces into a single piece just for my ease.

I'm quite happy with the way that it fits - there is no gaping across the front which is the main issue with button up shirts.

So the only real problem is that I realised once I finished it and tried it on that it's just not really me.  I'm not a button up shirt type of girl.  I've worn it a few times more because I think I should than because I want to.  I'm not sure if I'll bother to use this pattern again or not.  Maybe a more fancy shirt for going out?

So I like the pattern, I like the fit I just don't love the final product.