Green Shirt and Fitting Issues

So here's the green shirt I made for Hubby. This is final draft round 2. He likes this better than the white stripe one because the cuffs are stiffer and he likes the fabric better. This guy has got a serious obsession with super duper stiff collar and cuffs. That's still his beef with the shirt- the collar isn't stiff enough! It's not like I'm not trying- I've got incredibly stiff interfacing in there, so stiff that I couldn't turn the corners with the interfacing in there so I actually had to fuse the interfacing to muslin and then insert the interfacing piece into the sewn and turned collar in order to make sure I coudl actually get decent points on that collar. Still not quite enough though- the good news is that this gives me a great excuse to drag his butt to Denver Fabrics (aaah- to live in Denver!) to see if I can't find something that suits him better. Sheesh. I did inform him that this gives me the right to work on clothes for me all weekend so I can at least have *some* positive reinforcement for all my hard work! There will be a purple satin shirt for show and tell soon.

So here's my beef with the shirt. These annoying collar wrinkles don't bother Hubby because they're covered by the collar and tie, but yowza are they on my nerves! I can't figure out for the life of me what the problem is. I did notice in the other photo that Hubby appears to need a bit of a forward shoulder adjustment which I'm going to try. I've got my fingers crossed that the forward shoulder adjustment will fix these wrinkles too, but if not I have NO IDEA what's wrong! The wrinkles go away if I lift the collar band up higher on his neck which makes me think there may be something wrong with the neck opening on the body of the shirt, but the collar band fits him absolutely perfectly and I'm not really sure how to fix one without impacting the other. Ugh. Any ideas?

Here's his monogram for this shirt. I think it turned out reasonably well. Remember- I'm a beginner at all this hand embroidery stuff. I suppose these will get better as we go too! He thinks this one is a little boring (which it is) but I kinda like it. The thread matches the pinstripes on the shirt rather than the background fabric so I think it makes the shirt pop.

And so it begins...

Over the last year or so my sewing hobby has become slightly more obsessive. I imagine this is due to two major factors. The first factor is that I became hooked on sewing blogs, starting with A Dress A Day- check out the blogroll to see the list of sewists I am currently following. I can’t get enough! Of course, watching everyone else sew up these dreamy outfits and projects made me realize that I too can improve my skills so my creations can graduate from home-made mediocrity to custom tailored excellence.

The second factor is that I met my hubby while I was working for a major custom tailor company that will go unnamed. Because of this he has an insane addiction to $400 dress shirts that we cannot maintain by any stretch of the imagination without that incredible employee discount.

Ready for the solution?

After making a simple Hawaiian shirt for Hubby and stalking http://www.burdastyle.com/ for ideas and practice patterns which lead to the purchase of David Page Coffin’s indespensible book Shirtmaking: Developing Skills for Fine Sewing I finally convinced Hubby to let me try my hand at the real thing. This guy is extraordinarily picky when it comes to his shirts. They must be white collar and cuff, monogrammed, french cuff and in a fabric that probably couldn’t be purchased in a store. And the collar and cuff MUST have the stiffness of cardboard (this bit took me a while, have you ever tried turning a perfect collar point in cardboard? Rediculous!).

The good news is- I ended up with a shirt that got me the best compliment ever. After wearing it he remarked “Ok, now all I want for birthdays and Christmases from here on out is fabric!” Sweet! So now how do I convince him that I should get to spend the remaining $350 we would've spent on his shirts on fabric for me? Ha! I’ll let you know if that one ever works. In the meantime, here are the photos. There’s another shirt in the works in a fabric that’s a little more fun, so keep on the lookout.


Here's the collar- the collar stay pockets gave me fits- and I had to re-draft the collar twice, but all's well that ends well, right!

















French cuffs were such a pain, but so worth it!














The split yoke is an important detail when working with stripes on a shirt like this. When you match the stripes like this the front stripe is exactly lined up parallel to the front stripes so it looks pretty neat all around. It's a pain to match, but hey- it looks good and makes Hubby SUPER happy.







A big big in the back, he's been the magical shrinking Hubby lately so I'm guessing all of his shirts will need to be taken in before too long.

The pattern is a modification of Burda Style's Jakob. I changed the fit somewhat according to DPC's directions in his book. And I drafted the collar and cuffs based on one of Hubby's favorite shirts. Speak up if you'd like the cuff pattern, it took a long time to get it just right so the cuffs layer correctly when being worn (top slightly larger than bottom).