My Model Is Out of Town

But he gets another new shirt as a surprise upon his return, and then I'll get a couple of photos of him wearing it.

In the meantime Zillie is standing in. She's bra-less but still has a womanly figure that this man's shirt just doesn't quite fit. But the general idea is there if you ignore Zillie's hips and the shirt straining across her bust.



For this version, I traced some of the pattern pieces so I could split the two-piece front into three pieces for a contrast section in the middle of each front. I did the pattern work during a lunch break a few days ago. Then I cut in spurts over the next couple of days and finally sewed the shirt last night.

Another pattern change was to cut the back yoke in two pieces so I could chevron the stripes.



The striped fabric is an olive green nylon (I think) knit and the thin black stripes are sheer, like a burn-out effect. I didn't use interfacing anywhere because it would show through. I knew this would make the buttonholes tricky but I used a water soluble stabilizer top and bottom and they didn't fight me too much. I had to make horizontal buttonholes, though, because of that sheer stripe even though I would've preferred them to be vertical. But I wasn't going to chance buttonholes running next to that sheer stripe. The wide black stripe is more of the same black from the last make of this shirt, a cotton/poly blend knit.

Here's the shirt laid out flat. Both wide black stripes do actually curve like the left side is doing in this photo, but I guess I smooshed the right side in a bit more when I was laying it out on my table.



Besides incorporating extra hip room for DS per the previous shirt, the final alteration I made was to change the collar, using Nancy Zieman's Express Collar method. This way, there is no seam at the front of the collar, which I think looks better for a knit. I did this for the last shirt too, but I forgot to mention it in my review.



Here's the diagram from Sewing Express:



And my altered pattern piece:



Usually, the CB seam will be on the undercollar but because I wanted the stripes to lay diagonally on the collar points, I flipped it over and put the seam to the outside, as you can see in the photo of the back of the shirt above.

I've used this collar method before and am wondering why I don't use it more often. It means there's only one pattern piece (and interfacing) to cut, on the fold, and it really makes collars go faster.

I can't wait to see this on DS. I think the green will look great with his shocking red hair. But I'll have to wait as he won't be back home until Monday.

Both of my sons drove up to Jacksonville, FL to spend the weekend with their 26-year old half-brother (DH's son from marriage #1) and to be "stage crew" for his band's show tonight. I can only imagine what trouble they're getting into. ;-) They are all really close and always have a great time together. They are the only boys between our two blended families and they have a strong bond. We're so "blended" that my DS#2 and my stepson's sister share the same birthday. And his mother and I have birthdays only 1 day apart, but she's older. Nyah, nyah. LOL!

There won't be anymore sewing for me for a few days as I have some icky paperwork to catch up on. But when that's done, I've got a list 5 miles long …