I made a shirt for Tom from some fabric which has a city skyline on it.

I bought the fabric at Potter’s last year, and really had no idea what to do with it. There were two remnants and I had given one to Bridgette, Tom’s girlfriend. In order to make the shirt I had to retrieve her remnant, which she gave up willingly.

I approached the making of this shirt with some trepidation. The pattern runs for half the width of the fabric and is then repeated, upside down, on the other side. Some careful pattern placement – and much angst – and I managed to produce the shirt.

I used KwikSew 3422 which I have made a few times.

The fabric is linen so creases dreadfully – not sure how Tom will manage this, but hey, it’s not my problem hehe!

this pattern has 1cm seam allowance and I found it too difficult to flat fell the seams, so bound them instead. I tried to use my new fandangled binding foot, but gave up in disgust and did the whole thing manually.

I also tried out my new button foot, and this worked brilliantly. Instead of the usual messy nest behind my buttons, I have a very neat dot!

Tom was at work when I finished the shirt so Archie offered to model it for me. He’s, er, a different shape!  It’s a bit on the tight side everywhere.

I was freaking out a bit in case he pulled the seams apart.

It does fit Tom perfectly, except the sleeves are a bit long – I added 7 cms to the sleeve pattern – typically I went overboard.

All is well now; I took the cuffs off, cut off 1.5cm and replaced the cuffs. Much better! I can’t show you because once again, Tom is at work, and as he lives in the next street it’s really hard to track him down sometimes.

The details:

Pattern: Kwik Sew 3422

The fabric: linen from Potters

binding from my mother’s stash

Buttons: op shopped in New Zealand

GCC: Still going. I am managing to beat my average most days, but hanging out for the end.