After sewing knits for the last few weeks I looked forward to sewing with wovens again and made a classic shirt. I did not take pictures during the construction, I just enjoyed the process.
The pattern is Kwik Sew 3555, a loose fitting shirt without darts. This is the pattern that comes with the crafty class “The classic tailored shirt” from Pam Howard. You need a little patience when following the class, as Pam is really speaking slowly (even for me as a non-native speaker), but she explains everything very detailed and has lots of little tricks to show which help to get great results. This is not the first shirt I have sewn, but it is by far the best I ever made.
The shirt is meant to be tucked in. It has a collar and a collar stand with a button, a breast pocket and a double yoke at the back. I could close all buttons if I liked to:
All seams are flat felled seams. The sleeves were set in flat, before the side seams were closed. This was something new for me for a woven. The shirt has a lot of topstitching and edgestitching. Some of the topstitching was done from the wrong/left side of the shirt. Unfortunately, the stitches my machine makes do not look as good from the “bobbin” side. Maybe I have to try different settings for my machine to get better results.
The seam allowances of the breast pocket are not trimmed but help to shape a perfect crisp angle:
The same method was used on the sleeve cuffs:
I did have some problems with the hem at the curves, but as the shirt is tucked in, nobody will notice this:
Overall I am really happy how this shirt turned out. It is also very comfortable to wear. Maybe I will sew one or two more versions, but I usually like a more fitted style. Nevertheless, I will use all the new techniques I have learned for the next shirt.