V7903 olive stripe version

Olive stripe is how Michael's Fabrics described this fabulous shirting cotton, but it looks much more pale than olive to me - white and beige with a tiny deep burgundy stripe. I loved sewing this fabric. I made V7903 again, but decided to try a 7/8 to 3/4 very simple sleeve rather than a proper sleeve with a buttoning cuff.This particular sleeve design was due to my inherent laziness. I did not want to fit the long sleeve from the Sandra Betzina pattern at the particular moment I happened to be cutting out, so I winged it by eyeballing the short sleeve I had already adjusted. It seems to work.
I am particularly happy with the collar. The contrast inner collar stand is a quilting fabric scrap left over from a shirt I made for my son. He thinks this is rather cool on my shirt, as he selected the fabric, both for the original purpose, and to put on my shirt whilst I was pouring over the scrap bag for a suitable print. It is lovely to have a 6 year old who is excited about making things. The only problem is, he was visiting me at the sewing machine in order to request a quiver for his arrows, and a scabbard for his sword. This has something to do with Robin Hood, or possibly dragon hunting, and may be leading to a new cloak request. My SWAP is retreating into the distance.

 

 

For this shirt, I added a yoke to the back, and an inverted pleat to the centre back. I lay the two piece back pattern on the fold of fabric, with the very large adjustment for "sway back" giving a generous amount of pleat at the yoke level. I closed the pleat again for a short distance at waist level, making an "action back", as described with lovely internal construction photographs in a nursing corporate clothing catalogue I saw up at the hospital last week. I had not considered looking at corporate clothing catalogues for sewing tips before, but there is useful information in all sorts of peculiar places! I left in the two back darts, as I do not want a ballooning shirt back whilst wearing this with my wide legged Marlene pants.

 

Although I was feeling lazy about the sleeves, I did use the cross grain for the under cuff. I interfaced with silk organza, which felt rather luxurious. I hand sewed the inner cuff to the sleeve using running stitch in the pale beige (3 strands of DMC stranded cotton) then alternated stitches with the burgundy. I quite like this effect when I wear the sleeve rolled down, and have the horizontal stripe on view with the sleeve rolled up to 3/4 length.

 

This is possibly top number 3 in my SWAP. I am not sure if this will look good with my possible jacket options - I will worry about this if I get up to the jacket.