Let It Glow Berry Shirt

  When I was finished making the dresses for the girls, I had a good-sized chunk of the berry fabric (Let it Glow Berries in Slate by Moda) left, so I decided to use it for a coordinating shirt for myself.

  I started with my woven sloper, created a yoke, and moved the waist dart into gathers at the neckline. Since it's been over a year since I last used the sloper, I had no idea if it would fit or not and made a muslin out of some flamboyant quilting cotton I had taking up room on my shelves. 

  Based on the muslin, I lowered the yoke and neckline by 1.5", brought the shoulder seam in and raised the sleeve cap by 1/4", added 1/2" across the bust, and widened the hips by... I think it was 3/4". I didn't have enough fabric for full-length sleeves like I'd originally planned, so I made short ones with bows. And the result?

  It's far from perfect, but considering how long it's been since I sewed anything woven for myself, I'm pretty pleased! The curve from the waist to hips is a little bit too dramatic, and results in kind of a fin across the hips, so I'll definitely change that next time. I may go back in and smooth it out on this shirt, even though it will mean unpicking part of the invisible zipper. I'd also add a little bit more room across the bust and straighten the side seam slightly.

  If I wanted to make it more fitted, I would deepen the back darts a little bit too... but I wanted this one a little bit more relaxed. I think I might prefer keeping the waist darts instead of the side bust darts, but this does help smooth the lines over my belly a little bit.

  The main fitting issue in the back is the armscye... there appears to be entirely too much fabric there! I'm hoping to make a set of muslins to work out that issue, but I want to do it in solid fabric so I can see what's going on better.

  As for construction, I kept things pretty simple by serging a lot of the interior:

  The yoke is clean-finished though, and has flat piping on both exterior edges. This is the interior:

  The only invisible zipper I had that would work at all doesn't really match:

  But it's not noticeable at all from the outside.

  I made short continuously bound vents on the sleeves and added 'cuffs' that are folded and top-stitched down along the top edge. The ends of the cuffs are cut in a curved point.

  I top-stitched the vents too:

  I love the way the sleeves turned out!

  And I think that's it for this shirt! I'd like to make this again in a fabric that drapes better with all of the changes mentioned above, but it may be a while until that happens. This shirt is pretty awful for nursing too, so that's something that I'd want to fix. But overall, I'm still pretty happy with it!

Thanks for stopping by,