There are two kinds of people in the world: those who just go for it when they are intimidated by a project, and those who procrastinate about it. I am definitely the latter. I cut everything out for this shirt at the beginning of reading break, and then it ended up just sitting there for a good two or three weeks while I sewed other things– an almost unheard of occurrence because I rarely have WIPs. But there is a happy ending because eventually I couldn't handle the guilt and I was annoyed that it was holding all my pins when I needed them. So I sewed it up and kicked butt.
I am pretty late to the Archer shirt bandwagon, as everyone and their dog seems to have made it by now, but better late than never I guess. Because of all the little pieces required, I decided it would be easier to just get a paper pattern, so I ordered it during Thanksgiving sale. In the end the discount was pretty much canceled out by the shipping to Canada, and I ended up tracing out all the pieces anyways, but it was still a nice break from assembling pdf patterns.
I actually made a button-up shirt a few years ago for my Dad for Christmas, but a woman was helping me out and I got her to do most of the hard parts. Partially because they were hard, partially because I was terrified of her industrial serger.
Because this was intended to be a wearable muslin, I picked the fabric up on sale. I can't remember what it is (I really need to get better at that), but I'm 99% sure that it's cotton at any rate. It is really nice and soft and has the perfect amount of drape for this shirt, but the big problem was there is no right side. Which is all good and fine when it is finished and I wear it open or with the sleeves rolled up (which is always), but it made for a few booboos during construction.
First I accidentally ironed the interfacing onto the 'wrong' side of the left front, so the fronts of both sides are done kind of backwards (inside out?), but it is not noticeable at all.
Then I sewed the collar on wrong side up. So you can see in the second last picture that there is a seam in the middle of it, and since the instructions specifically say to press the seam going around the collar towards the underside before edge-stitching, there is that showing as well. Luckily it is not too obvious given the busy pattern.
As for pattern-matching, I had decided before cutting that I wasn't going to bother, because it was just so tiny. But the busy pattern pretty much hides that as well :).
The hardest part about construction was probably the collar and that little finicky bit of getting the collar stand to match up with the button bands (which I didn't do an amazing job of), but the day after I finished it I came across this collar tutorial at Four Square Walls, so I am going to try that next time.
I was worried about doing the buttonholes, because I have never managed to make a neat one, but after close to eight years of using the machine, I finally decided to take the 5 minutes to find the manual online, which contained instructions for the buttonhole. This was a real eye opener. I even enjoyed making them. And to think I have spent years avoiding patterns with buttonholes.
The other thing I learned while making this shirt that I had a suspicion about while making Watson is that the inside edge of my machine foot is just not a suitable guide for edge-stitching. It's about 1/8", and just looks way too wide. So the new guide is the invisible line between the needle and the inside edge. Great.
Also, after looking at the above picture, I need to work on remembering to press my sleeve seams.
I sewed a size 2 with no alterations, and seems to fit fine. It could be maybe 1/2" longer, but in the body it is also fine without, and I always wear the sleeves rolled up anyways. The only other change I'd maybe make for next time is a smaller pocket.
Probably the best surprise of this project was how much I love it. Which sounds pretty weird, but I had picked out the fabric because it was only $7 a meter and "kind of pretty", and I don't really picture myself as a button-up kind of girl. For a couple weeks though, this was that new clothing article that you have to try and stop yourself from wearing every day.
I was also a bit apprehensive about sewing something with so many steps (I sew a lot of t-shirts, okay), but I had a lot of fun making it.
The other FANTASTIC news is that as of 2pm yesterday, I am out of school! MAN, does that ever feel good. I don't really know yet what to do with myself, but I did start sewing a pair of jeans this morning! Speaking of intimidating projects...
Anyways, now that I am homework free, I am going to try and post more, although I also decided that I was going to write in my journal every day and had forgotten by the next day, so we'll see :)
Thanks for reading!
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