A Little on the Top

You wouldn't know it from the way I've been posting here, but I've been slaving over my sewing machine a lot these days.  Well, maybe not so much slaving as having anxiety dreams about slaving away over my machine.  Huh.

See, I think I've gone overboard with the fabric shopping.  Also -- this'll be news to you -- I've gone crazy with pattern shopping too.  I know, I know, the girl who hasn't met a free pattern she didn't like is spending money on them.  By the gross, it would seem.  But guess what?  (insider tip!) don't ever buy any Vogue/McCall's/Butterick pattern at full price.  They're always on sale. 

That brings me to this. The first thing I've attempted since becoming a fabric and pattern hoarding loony.  I bought it because I've never made a shirt.  Also, it looked like it would be an easy introduction because, hey, no inset sleeves. 

Ugh.  Not super easy.

Being the newb that I am, I've discovered that the best way to overcome hurdles is to just keep going.  Plow through!  Take no prisoners!  And this works out for the most part, but, in between that plowing through bit, I've fallen in the habit of taking looooong breaks whenever I get frustrated.  And, in this case, there were many long breaks.

Now that I'm on the other side, I guess I can concede that it's an easy pattern -- Butterick 5610 --  but I'm not convinced that biting the bullet and tackling some honest-to-goodness sleeves would have been much harder.  Add to that that this project required a lot of hand sewing and I'm thinking that it might have been too much effort for what I'm afraid might sort of look like a hospital gown.

If you want to give it a try anyway, I'll tell you that I didn't do any of the topstitching on the neck or sleeves.  And going around the corners of the yoke caused a little swearing.  There's some bunching on the back corners, but hey, miraculously only the back, so I let it slide.  Also, with all that hand stitching of the yoke lining, the pattern nicely finishes half the seams for you, but that leaves the rest of the seams looking pretty shabby in comparison.  It wouldn't be any big thing to do some french seams on the side seams, but I'm not sure exactly how you'd finish the armholes.  Things get tricky up in there.

So, shirt?  Check.  Now that that's over with, I've got about seven other patterns waiting in the wings, a few of which require inset sleeves.  I may revisit this one with my hard-earned knowledge and nicer fabric, but first I've got some men in my life who are desperate for shirts.