Hello! I’ve been sewing a new shirt for Craig… and feel quite bad actually because we
bought this fabric for him during our visit to Japan last January… nearly a whole year ago! Yes, I feel terrible.
Anyway, now it has been made, finally, all done and dusted, better late than never!
Pattern: I even treated myself to a new mens’ shirt pattern! this is Burda 6874. My old favourite Burda 7767 is very very used now and a lot of the cutting lines have almost fretted away and a few are barely visible anymore. I’ve still got it and will use it for the collar variations, which have always been its best feature. This new pattern is very nice too; it is a basic yoked mens’ shirt pattern, quite slimline, more slimline that my old pattern! with two back variations, curved hemline, regular or hidden button band variations, long cuffed sleeves, a collar stand and collar which can be made as a regular collar or a button-down… and when it comes to that please don’t get me started on the widespread but incorrect use of the term “button-down” as it applies to shirts… my pet hate grrrrrr. Hint; it’s not about the shirt at all, but the COLLAR. If the collar buttons down onto the shirt, it is called a button-down shirt. If the collar does not button down onto the shirt, it is NOT a button-down shirt. Simples.
(deep breath) ok so this is clearly NOT a button-down shirt… as per Craig’s request I also made it with short sleeves and gave it a hidden button band. It’s interesting that the hidden buttons do not have even spacing under that band… the space between the second, exposed button and the next one down is shorter than the others… this made me a little nervous when I was stitching those buttonholes, I checked the pattern, and double-checked! and yep, it IS supposed to be like that!
Also above; I decided upon welt pockets rather than patch pockets. No, they can hardly be seen in amongst that busy print. I’ve made my peace with that, at last, though that was the motivating factor behind my decision to topstitch throughout with black thread, to make all the details of the shirt stand out a little more.
I made up the pattern almost as is, with just a slight custom-fitting alteration for Craig, namely extending the underarm by 2.5cm, and that same width to each side of the sleeves at the underarm too. This extra width is tapered away to nothing by the bottom of the sleeve. It’s a similar alteration I always did to Craig’s Burda 7767’s too, but slightly different/less exaggerated since the fit of the new pattern is slightly different. Or maybe Craig has slightly changed? always possible I suppose!
All seams are flat-felled, including the armscye seams, and see here for my tutorial on how to flat fell a curved armsye seam (as below). I also did the yoke using that burrito method, so there was no need for hand stitching. Still had to hand stitch the inner collar facing down though… I don’t think the method has been invented yet that can eliminate that!
Fabric; Japanese Liberty tana lawn, bought from Check & Stripe in Tokyo, during our holiday last January. Craig chose it himself; the little village and woodland scenes are so lovely. Do I wish I had bought more, and even a little bit for myself YES!! but oh well. I did buy plenty of other fabrics for myself, don’t worry. But oh! Liberty such a true delight to work with… its so pliable, smooth, even; it passes through the machine beautifully, folds and presses so crisply and perfectly. I just wish I could sew with it more often!! The little unobtrusive black buttons are from Spotlight. I know, not very worthy, huh. Bit of a letdown. Well, it’s not like the buttons are going to steal any shows here. That beautiful print does all the talking!
Pattern: the Sophie swimsuit by Closet Case patterns; and yes, 
With the bottoms; my black fabric is quite thick, almost a little scuba-like and isn’t hugely stretchy, so to be on the safe side I made size 6 bottoms grading out to an 8 at the hips. I didn’t think it needed a full lining but I did incorporate a “panty liner” of white stretch fabric, sandwiched between the front and back in the joining seam and basted it along each leg edge before attaching my swimwear elastic. I topstitched on each side of all vertical seams 1/8″ out from each side (above). You can barely even see this with the naked eye actually because of the black-on-black! but I just wanted it to be all finished off nicely and to stylistically fit in with that same topstitching on the bikini top 🙂
Mum and I went shopping together on my birthday; her for my birthday present, and me for her birthday present! yes, our birthdays are just a few days apart so this is a bit of a tradition. We went to Fabulous Fabrics. Haha… well how unexpected! *wink*
from L to R, top to bottom:
Uppers: this particular vinyl has that very rubbery texture which sticks to the presser foot, leading to horribly uneven stitches. I usually use a strip of tissue paper to facilitate the vinyl going evenly through the machine; but these strips are really really skinny, wonky stitching would stand out a mile and I wanted to get the topstitching perfectly even in appearance, and you can’t see through tissue paper so it just wasn’t going to cut it this time. I found though, that by turning the vinyl upside down it all worked out quite smooth and fairly easy to sew.
A bit of faffing about with strips and I finally settled upon a nice simple, multi-strapped design, cut a denim “inner sole” piece and zigzagged all the strips to this underneath the echo-panel layer, to anchor them securely into position inside the sandal. This denim inner sole is sandwiched between, and securely glued to the echo-panel above and the cork sole below. So it’s not visible in the final sandal, also, none of those strips is in danger of pulling out!
I toyed with the idea of leaving the echo-panel showing on the edge, but its woolliness actually picks up every stray hair and twig, and the white shows like every smudge, and I decided a smooth, dark edge would be less of a headache. More sensible, hides the dirt, you know. I cut and glued on a nice evenly cut strip of dark denim to the outside edge, pinning in a few strategic places where the denim didn’t instantly stick to the inner curves of the sole. Those pins can just be seen in the picture below; I sort of thought they would be a temporary measure until the glue dried, however they got pretty firmly glued in themselves and proved impossible to get out! so I’ve left them in there. After this picture was taken I went back and touched them all up with a dob of black paint so now they’re invisible. And, then they were further sealed in with several coats of varnish over the denim, so they’re pretty secure. I don’t think I have to worry that they’ll ever come out 🙂
O hey-a! After finishing my own Kelly anorak and having it admired to the nth degree by family members, I made a few more! a pale grey one for Cassie, and I also made a deep cobalt blue one for Tim’s girlfriend Kelly. Well, it seemed only right that she should have a “Kelly” too!
I quickly snapped that top picture of an unsuspecting Cassie waiting to meet up with me in town before she noticed me heading towards her… I know it’s a bit blurry and not very posed to show off the anorak to modelly perfection, but I just really like it nonetheless… to me it attests that she’s been wearing it a tonne, in fact every single occasion that I’ve seen her in the past three weeks since I finished it and gave it to her she has been wearing it. There’s no greater compliment to a seamster than that! as well as a testament to the pattern being an absolute style winner. Kelly’s worn hers each time I’ve seen her since I gave it to her too, but I’ve not taken any pictures of her in it.. will update if she sends me one 🙂
Both the anoraks are in a nice weight cotton drill from Spotlight, in fact, all the other bits and pieces are from Spotlight too. In both anoraks, I added a few inches to the length of the body and modified the pockets to have separate pocket flaps so as to close the pockets; otherwise these are both made up exactly to the pattern.
This picture below of Kelly’s anorak has been my most “liked” picture on instagram ever! far more than anything I have ever made for myself! Interesting, no? Well, I think it is, anyway 😉 I don’t know what that “says”, if anything at all, but maybe something. Social media is such a funny phenomenon. Something else also interesting to me is how a person, any person, can have a certain number of followers and the number of “likes” never ever reaches anywhere close to that number. Honestly, I have no idea about how or why this is so, but it’s just a curious thing.
I’d got enough of the same white cord for Kelly’s anorak , but since I’d found a nice, perfectly colour-matched blue zip for hers’, and used blue thread for all topstitching and there was no other white anywhere in the jacket; the white cord looked all wrong. And naturally there’s no such thing as blue cord in the whole of Perth! so I just had to dye it. And, when your regular dye-pot is HUGE and there’s just one little length of cord what’s a mad maker to do? but of course, improvise.
