Grainline's Jen breaks the shirt making process into easy to manage chunks so if you want to sew the shirt over a long period of time you can. I enjoyed making this shirt so much that I sewed everything up to the collar and cuffs in one go.
The collar, cuffs and buttonholes are arguably the trickiest part of the pattern. I sewed the plackets first attempt without any problems and was really impressed with how well they came together.
Everything I've made so far has been "frosting" and no cake, this is definitely a cake pattern. It's mainly for work because I don't really wear shirts in my casual wardrobe. I don't usually make workwear but I kept seeing lovely RTW shirts but none of them were quite perfect. I wanted a shirt of nice fabric, a loose fit, longer length with no pockets. The glorious part of dressmaking/sewing is being able to make something specific to your tastes and fit. I just couldn't bring myself to buy RTW when I knew I could make something and feel so accomplished.
My favourite part of the pattern was all the top stitching which makes you feel like a sewing God, even if you don't quite manage 1/16".
I was most worried about the collar and the buttonholes. I was advised to use this tutorial instead of the instructions which I did and found it really straight forward and easy to follow. The buttonholes also were really easy to do - just don't run out of bobbin thread halfway through like I did! I ended up sewing the buttons on by hand as I didn't want to snap my machine needle trying to do it automatically and found it really therapeutic.
The fabric is Essex linen by Robert Kaufman which is a linen/cotton blend. Its quite thick which makes it ideal shirting especially for my first shirt. The buttons were from the Clothhouse.
Unfortunately the shirt is a little small around the hips, I cut a straight size 4 but should have graded out. That along with the thicker fabric means that I've only worn this shirt twice despite spending so much time on it.
Don't you just hate it when that happens!?
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