"The Perfect Shirt"

I just finished McCalls 5433, which is a Palmer/Pletsch pattern. This is a classic fit shirt/blouse. It does not have any yokes, but it does have 4 darts in front and two in the back for fitting. I followed the P/P guide sheet for all of the fitting and made plenty of adjustments/alterations.













As you can see here, I needed to add 1.5" in the FBA to get the cf of the pattern meet my cf. After doing the FBA, you re-mark the bust point so you know how to angle the dart. I need to be a little more careful with my tissue fitting. I thought I needed to lower the dart after I did the FBA and did by one inch. After stitching the dart and pin fitting, I realized I needed to raise it back up. I moved the bust point of the dart up and inch and just angled it up. On the pattern, I cut out the dart and moved the whole thing back up where it started.

Now that I think I have all the fit issues taken care of, I want to make it again and see how it turns out. These are the alterations I made:
-FBA
-narrow upper back
-High round back - on this pattern I don't think I needed it, so I will try it without next time
-sway back
-forward shoulder
-narrow shoulder
-widened at the hips

My poor pattern piece is so cut up and taped up. I will probably copy it onto other pattern material now that I think I have all the adjustments on it.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with this blouse. Now I will have to make some pants to go with it!

I'm impressed with tissue fitting

After tissue fitting the blouse, I went ahead and cut it out. I was going to make a muslin, but isn't the whole point of tissue fitting relief from the muslin? I was brave. I cut my "good fabric" but left 1" side seams just in case (as Patti suggested) Then, remembering what we had learned at PR weekend and what I had seen on the P/P pants fitting video, I pin- fit the blouse next. From pin fitting I could see that I needed to take in A LOT in the side seams at the waist. Although this is a fairly straight fitting blouse (very little curve in the side seams and no darts) it looked like a big sack. I ended up taking in TWO INCHES at each side seam at the waist and tapering out again to the hip. Next time I will need to add a little bit more at the hip as well. Either that or get my sorry butt to the gym!

I could also see in the back view that I needed to take a bigger sway back adjustment. It's too late for this one, but next time I will do that. Since I let out the side seams at the hip a little and took in the waist, the wrinkling in the back isn't nearly as bad as it is in this photo.

After I pin fit the blouse, I basted the side seams with the new curves I added. At this point, I could see that somehow I managed to get the right dart much lower than the left dart. I also had made one dart longer than the other. So, I ripped out the basting (This is why I baste!) and re-stitched the dart and tried it on again. Much better. I could also see that the neckline was too high and the shoulders still too wide. I took a little off of these areas and forged ahead.

I'm always a little worried about collars with bands because although they look much nicer, mine don't always turn out well. Well, this one turned out perfectly! I was so happy. So happy that is until I pinned it on the shirt only to find that the band is about 1/2 inch too short on both sides! I couldn't believe it! I checked my alterations and pattern pieces and couldn't see where I had made the neckline any bigger. I thought maybe it really stretched out (I must remember to stay-stitch those necklines!) But, then I walked the pattern pieces, and sure enough, the band is too short. It lines up perfectly from the CB to the shoulder seam, but the front edge is 1/2" shorter than what it should be. Well, good thing I had extra fabric to cut a new one. Of course, I didn't have any more of my Perfect Fuse interfacing of the right weight pre-shrunk and I didn't want to wait while that shrunk and dried, so I used another interfacing instead. I think it will be OK.

I also basted the sleeves and although they fit fine the way they are drafted, they were a little snug for me, so I let them out about 3/8" at the side seams. Because of this, I took an additional tuck at the sleeve bottom in order for the cuffs to fit. So, instead of having 2 pleats near the placket, I have 3.

I haven't done a sleeve placket in a long time and I wasn't quite sure what the BWOF directions were saying, so I pulled out my Readers Digest sewing book and followed their method for a continuous placket. It turned out pretty well.

I'm really loving the fabric of this blouse. It is all linen with a gold lurex thread running thorough it that makes the fabric look metallic. It's a soft ivory-gold. The funny thing is that it only looks metallic on the right side, but the inside is just regular soft linen, so I think the shirt will be comfortable to wear. All I have left to do now is the buttonholes and buttons. I won't be doing double buttons as is shown on the line drawing because I have 9 beautiful buttons that I want to use. These are beautiful vintage buttons that Birgitte picked out for me to use on this fabric. I'm planning on finishing this sometime this weekend and then I will show pix!

The Fit

Part of my mini wardrobe is the 105 blouse from BWOF April 2009. After seeing Pati Palmer last weekend I decided to try the FFRP method for FBA again and use tissue fitting. I cut a straight 36 from BWOF and tried it on as shown in the book. I found that I needed about 1-3/4 -2" to meet the CF, but the back seemed to be right. I'm doing all the fitting without a "buddy" using just the bathroom mirror and a hand-held mirror.










I noticed that the neckline was too low in the back, judging by the location of my necklace on my neck. Pati said that she thought I had a forward neck, so even though I don't have a "high round back", that's the adjustment that would work for this. I did about a 5/8" HRB adjustment and also a forward shoulder just pivoting from the neck to rotate the shoulder seam 1/2" to the front. Now, If I only had to wear a shirt from the collar to the upper third of the armscye I think I would have great fit!!










Next, the dreaded bust. I used the FBA as outlined in FFRP and added 1-3/4" in the width. This also widened the whole front, which means I did not have to flare out at the hip. However, I may need to taper in a bit at the waist. There is no dart in this pattern, so I decided to add one. (You need one to do this FBA) This alteration does lower the dart, so after I tried on the tissue fit, I realized that I needed to raise the dart about 1" I'm still not getting the CF on the pattern to match my CF, but I really don't want to make an even larger dart or two darts. I decided to add an addtional 1/2" to the front side seams only by doing pivot and slide. (which is mentioned in the book, does not go into detail)



I think I will still make a muslin because I'm not sure that all of my alterations are right and I'm using art tracing paper which is stiffer than pattern paper which drapes better.

I'm hoping to do the muslin and make the blouse this weekend.