I can’t believe my last post was one week ago.  It’s March Break and the kids are off school, so I’ve been going to the zoo, the museum, running them to opera day camp and generally not sewing.  I’m not complaining – it’s fun to spend time with them since I don’t get to do that on a regular basis and they’re fun kids to be with – but obviously I’m not getting anything done around my sewing corner!    

I want to thank all of you who shared your opinions and advice for my shirt.  This is probably the best reason that I love to blog.  No one else in my life has the experience or the expert eye – or the patience and time – to pinpoint faults and then provide solutions!  Your comments and suggestions confirmed my sewing intuition, which is encouraging in itself.  I did tweak it some, as you’ll read about, but it was too late for some solutions!

I am lacking a clone.  I did have a duct tape dress form once upon a time, but it collapsed out of shape because I neglected to fill it with expandable window insulation foam or whatever I was supposed to use.  I do have a stack of duct tape awaiting DH’s attention to make another clone of myself, which will make fitting things much easier.  There’s even a can of the said expanding insulation waiting to fill out the shape properly and prevent future collapses.  But in the meantime, I have to sing the praises of my DH.  There are days when I think he’d best fall off the planet and others when I know perfectly why I decided to marry him!  And here’s one reason:  I put this shirt on and asked him if he’d help pin out the back to tweak the fit.  He was quite willing to help and even took pictures so I could see the results after each adjustment.  He was very careful and meticulous about following my directions and pinning the fabric gently so as not to hurt it.  Was there ever such a good man?

Unfortunately for this post, all the pictures are on their way to South Africa in his camera as I write this, so I’m unable to share the ones he took.  The ones included here are the final version of this shirt!  First DH pinned out the excess through the waist area – a total of about 3 inches, I think.  It needed to fit closer.  I wouldn’t normally want a shirt fitting as closely as this one does, but given the fabric texture and the colour I’m comfortable with it and it makes a more pleasing silhouette.  And one of my many buttons did not get buttoned for this shot!  Oh, well!

Then he pinned out about 1/2” at the CB hem.  I had thought perhaps more should be taken in, but he said that it pulled across the hips like I was afraid it would.  I then asked him to pin out the wrinkles across the back shoulders, but after doing the other adjustments he said it wasn’t pulling.  Huh?! Now either I had to believe him, or he didn’t know what he was looking for.  In the end he pinned out only 1/2” – something I honestly couldn’t be bothered adjusting.  I would have taken off the collar and shortened the CB length as per Tanit-Isis’ suggestion, but for 1/2”?  I might want perfection, but I’m quite happy to live without all the work of re-attaching a collar.

I think perhaps this fabric was not the best choice for this design.  I’m still happy with the shirt, but when I make it up again, I’ll be taking the advice of Ruth who emailed me the suggestion of cutting out the back pieces roughly and letting the bias cure for a couple of days BEFORE cutting the pattern pieces properly.  This makes a lot of sense to me, and will be the way I make up bias garments in the future.  I’m also amazed at how this silk is not wrinkling.  The garment had been folded for days prior to putting it on to take pics for this post, and you’d never know it!  Gotta love Italian silks!

Anyways, I’m done with this shirt, so on to something new for next time!