I’ve made a new shirt.
But I can’t do any reviews, because this shirt is based on not one pattern, not even two patterns, but three patterns. A conglomeration of patterns. The united states of patterns. You’ve heard of a meeting of the minds? This is a meeting of the patterns. A little bit, hopefully the best, taken out of each and the production of a mongrel, but better, (stronger, faster) shirt…
I knew in my head exactly what I wanted; I wanted a billowy pirate-y type shirt, inspired by the cute little skull buttons I bought in Japan. The buttons are miniature silver skulls, but each is wearing a tiny little silver crown, so the shirt had to be not just piratical, but kind of majestic at the same time to make it worthy of these completely wonderful buttons. Don’t you just love these buttons? You cannot get buttons like this here… I need to go to Japan more often.
The fabric is a thin self-patterned black cotton/synthetic mix that was one of my Christmas presents, bought by me, for my son to give to me for Christmas (hey, we’re practical when it comes to gift giving around here…)
I’m wearing it hanging out over my skirt here, to show it in its full length with the gently curved hemline on show, but most probably I will wear it tucked in a lot of the time too…
I put the technical details of making the shirt below, if anyone is interested.
Oh, the shoes. These are my highest heels, at 4 1/2″. They put me at over 6′. I adore these shoes, and decided I am going to wear them more often, just because. Of course I didn’t wear them to walk the dog. But I wore them to do my other daily and office activities. They are a lot more comfortable than they appear.
Details:
Shirt; Burdastyle 10-2010-102, collar from Burda 8218, sleeves from Burdastyle 05-2010-101, made of black self-patterned cotton mix with skull buttons bought in Japan
Skirt; Vogue 7303, olive corduroy, to see this skirt styled in 6 different way go here
Shoes; Kron by Kron Kron, bought online
The shirt; so it’s probably pretty complicated so you can skip this technical stuff unless you really want to reproduce this for yourself… like a lot of seamstresses I like to take a little bit from here and a little bit from there, and manipulate the patterns I have to get the look I want..
I saw this lovely graceful classic shirt pattern 102 in Burdastyle magazine 10/2010 (right, top) and liked its loosely elegant body with no body darts or shaping. But I wanted a shawl collar rather than the classic one in the pattern, thus the hunting down and finally locating Burda 8218, the only shawl collared shirt pattern available here in Perth, or so it seemed… and for the sleeves, I wanted something gathered and billowy, but three quarter length, so used the lower part of the bell-shaped gathered sleeve from the dress pattern 101 from Burdastyle 05/2010 (right, lower). To cut the sleeve cap to fit into the armscye of the shirt pattern, I laid down the sleeve pieces from the shirt pattern 102, to get the sleeve cap part of the sleeve right. It is a two piece sleeve, but I just laid them together with the stitching lines abutting. The other sleeve from the dress pattern 101 I laid down on top with the underarm points matching those of the shirt sleeve pattern, and just used this to cut out the arm part of the sleeve with the bellshaped hemline (see below), and I also used the sleeve cuff from the same dress pattern 101. Except when I had finished the shirt, the sleeves didn’t sit exactly how I envisioned, they sagged a bit low and I really wanted for them to look really billowy and like they were pushed up to the elbow permanently. So I added an in-sleeve tab on the sleeve seam which pulls the sleeves up to gather just that little more fully and gracefully at just below elbow length and sit up right where I want them. I only had five of the skull buttons so I had to use different buttons here, these are purply-grey natural shell buttons.
The shawl collar, well, obviously I used the collar pattern pieces from Burda 8218, and cut the shirt front facings, front neckline edge and back neckline edge to match those of this pattern, otherwise the collar wouldn’t have fitted… This only took a little bit of adjustment and it was not difficult at all to match the collar from one shirt pattern to the different body of the other shirt pattern.
Et voila.
(the sleeve at left; the two shirt sleeve pieces underneath were laid together along the stitching line to get the sleeve cap, at left, and the lower edge of the sleeve piece was cut off at the curved hemline of the piece on top)
Great shirt, worthy of those fabulous buttons! (I want to fabric/notion shop in Japan too!)
And those shoes, wow!!!
Oh, I almost forgot! Thanks for your comments on my AKO Skirt, Vogue 1248. Please, PLEASE, make that skirt! That entire outfit would be ah-maz-ing on you, the tiny waisted. 🙂 And I would so love to admire the shirt cuff bows…
These heels are really attractive…I may have to rethink my ideas about heels. Do they make you feel sassier than usual?
Excellent buttons and I love the fullness in the back of the skirt.
i just started a new job and have shirt sewing on my mind too…you look great in this sort of shirt, nice sleeve length/style to.
thanks for inspiration.
Allison
The skull buttons are really fun! Perfect for a Franken-pattern shirt 🙂
Oh. Love that shirt, I'm sure my son would steal the shirt if it were in my closet. Wonderful mix of patrones.Excelente result.
You're right, those buttons are pretty epic. I think you did them justice. 🙂
Great shirt! I love the buttons. Coincidentally, I have decided that I will start wearing heels, as well. I just brought my favorite ones (that I have only worn once)to the shoemaker so he can make the paper-thin soles more street-friendly.
I really love the collar in the close up, the whole shirt turned out beautifully majestic 🙂
Your shirt is gorgeous and you certainly took the best from each pattern. The buttons are amazing and they look very much at home on your shirt 🙂 Your son picked the perfect fabric.
great shirt, great buttons, great shoes.
Wonderful shirt those buttons are great, and i love your shoes!
Wow, those are high! I'm tottering with anything much over 2 1/2 inches, lol. I like the practical gift giving too. I'm going to give Kevin a list this year so he can give me similar practical gifts. 🙂
I really like how it drapes with the inverted pleat in the center back. And the detail of the fold up sleeves with tabs! You've done alot like this and it seems so practical. It looks like it can be wonderfully cool in the summer but a color that you can wear year round.
I love the way you've combined pattern pieces to get the shapes you want. I wanted a sleeve for a particlar sleeveless blouse and hunted through my patterns until I found one with the same armscye. Both methods work, but yours would give so many more choices.
I love the new shirt (and the shoes)! I really like starting project ideas like that, from a button or a ribbon or something. Also, I've just passed on a Stylish Blogger Award to you 🙂
I love the skull buttons.
hopping on the button loving band wagon
ditto all the above comments!
Love everything about this. I have it the same way at times when it comes to knowing exactly what you want and then trying to mix and match. I sometimes wish I knew all my burdastyle magazines by heart;-). And yay for the shoes!
love it, I love the way it fits on you. Three patterns? Geeze, that takes some skill! I'm impressed. It definitely turned out looking amazing though. You need to start your own clothing line or something.
Love the skulls and heels!!!…the unexpected…
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