Another shirt from McCalls 6613

I am still deep in company land so this will be brief. Here are some shots of my latest shirt for a son, this one for my boy in NYC.

This pattern continues to impress with a few modifications. The buttonhole markings for the collar are far too high into the collar - the ones you see in RTW are right into the point, in some right into the top stitching.

I have also settled on this method for doing a collar on a stand, more steps but each is more or less a straight seam and can be fixed before you commit to the next stage. No fancy sewing or rolling or twisting - this method suits my style of sewing best.


Here we go:

Shirt thoughts

As I said I have been sewing shirts. I have a few thoughts worth sharing I think and a couple of shots.

First pockets.

Since I am making patterned shirts for the clientele with well-developed senses of humour and hipster sense I am matching patterns on the patch pockets in those times I can.

For a person who has extraordinarily wide tolerance for lack of attention to detail in the rest of her life it is interesting how little things in sewing matter to me. I hate it in RTW when they slap on a pocket out of pattern on the front of something and don't match the pattern.

It is actually very easy to match the pattern of a pocket to a shirt. 

Here's the method I use:

1. Pin the front pattern piece to the fabric and cut it out. Leave the pattern piece on the fabric. So far to good.
2. Since you are using a thin paper pattern you can usually see the fabric pattern pretty easy through the pattern piece. Lay your pocket pattern piece on top of the front pattern in position as marked. Again so far so good.
3. Using a pencil lightly trace the main outlines of the pattern onto the pocket piece as you can see them through the layers of tissue.
4. Mark the top corners of the pocket on the front and remove that pattern piece.
5. Take your pocket piece and find a spot in a fabric scrap where you can lay the pocket pattern on matching your pencil marks to the pattern.
6. When you position your pocket to the front to cut out all you have to do is find the corner marks and line up your pocket pattern so it matches the front and top stitch down.

This is what the end product looks like:

A shirt for me I will finish when I have the boys shirts done.

Because I am making the boys a sort of casual shirt, with a collar and band and buttons on the collar points I am using this pattern:

McCalls 6613

I am having a final fitting today so I can't speak to that yet but I have a few construction notes.

The first is that this pattern has separate pattern pieces for the front bands. This makes sense when you are trying to do something fancy like cut the band on the diagonal like they have in the man's shirt pictured above, or if you are working with a fabric that has a right side different from the wrong side, like I am.

Be aware however that this is not the usual, or the best way, to do a band in a standard, both sides the same, shirt fabric.

RTW shirts are made with the front bands being mere extensions of the fronts (to add this to your pattern measure your finished band width and add 2 X that to the fronts measuring from the seam allowance). In construction the button hole band is folded twice towards the front and top-stitched down along each long edge and the button band is folded twice to the wrong side and top-stitched along the inner, folded edge only.

I like this way of constructing a band best, once you have adjusted the pattern if you have to, because it is fast, easy and looks professional.

It also does not use any interfacing because you in fact have three layers of fabric on each side, or six layers over all.

In patterns like McCalls 6613 above with a sewn on band for some crazy reason they have you interface both bands. This is not a good idea, even if you use very light interfacing, much lighter than you would for the collar (if you try to use collar weight interfacing for this your wearer will not be able to bend forward without impaling themselves in the neck with their button band).

Instead you need to forget about interfacing the band at all and just don't trim the seam allowances once you sew the bands on. This will give you a weight and support very similar to the first product and to a professional feel to the shirt.

All that said here is my latest son shirt, with the button holes all done but not cut and the buttons not sewn on. I have to position the collar buttons first. This fabric was originally intended for shorts so I was a little short and had to do a contrast for the inside yoke and the pocket matching described above was not possible. I tried the best I could with the fabric I had to extend the sails of the pattern so it is better than nothing.

I am pretty pleased with this shirt overall: