Red Vines

 I decided to go all-in on a Proper button up shirt, using McCall's 6613 (currently available as Butterick 6841)

I proceeded to ignore every single thing written in the directions, so maybe it wasn't as "all-in" as it could have been.

 I folded about 3" out of the body, because otherwise this would have been almost long enough to be a dress on me, and shortened the sleeve pieces to around 16" under the arm. I did none of the tissue fit alterations called for by the Palmer/Pletsch feature.  I mean, yeah, I probably should do those--I do have the Fit for Real People book--but...not this project.

Taking out that torso length also took out a button, meaning I used eight total instead of the nine called for.

I also restrained my top stitching tendencies, sticking to edge stitching, and a lot of that was to actually fasten down edges, since I like to press various band edges under before sewing, sew the bands to the back, then flip the pressed edges around and stitch them down from the front, right along the edge.

I did forget to edge stitch the collar before attaching it, which, along with edge stitching along construction seams, is something I like to do to, in theory, help maintain crisp lines with less need for pressing.

I edge stitched all along the opening edge of the front bands and around the collar. The curves on the collar stand are a lot better than I expected, since I was stitching from the back of those so I would end up stitching from the outside of the collar.  The rule of "the better match your thread, the better the top stitching" holds true.

I thrifted this fabric years ago--Faye Liverman Burgos for Marcus Brothers--with absolutely no ideas for it.  I'd been thinking patchwork for quite a while, so it was nice to realize its hand was close enough to top weight to work in a shirt like this.

I had more than enough of it that I probably could have pattern matched across the opening and placket, but I felt like it would be better to instead make sure that nothing repeated too obviously in that area.

There aren't a lot of elements to this print, so repeats were unavoidable, but I just...feel better when they're not front and center.

I assembled the yoke via burrito method.

The print being one way made me ignore fabric direction on a few pattern pieces and cut things on grain when they technically should be cross grain.

I pressed the entire hem up 5/8", then pressed half of that down to the inside, before assembling the shirt, due to the way I sew on the placket band needing to have that hem in place but I also want to sew the placket before attaching the front pieces to the back and I don't want to sew the side seams first nor do I want to have to maneuver the whole mostly-assembled garment around the ironing board.  Press the individual pieces first, then unroll the pressing to make the seams, trim the seam allowance within that unrolled part, roll it back up, sew.

And, this time, I trusted my press-and-fold-in-half ability and stitched the hem from the inside along the edge of the fold, instead of marking a depth to sew from the edge and sticking to that.

I'd use the larger hem roller if I wanted to sew things in a different order.  Which I don't.

SPEAKING OF.

This shirt has sleeves made up of two pattern pieces.

But it is a deception.

They are not proper two-part sleeves, which impart a gentle curve.

They are "Listen, we've devoted an entire sheet of directions to telling you how to get a good fit from this pattern, we're not gonna devote a chunk more to telling you how to do any kind of sleeve placket set into a slash, so we're just gonna put a seam here so it's obvious you just need to roll over and stitch down some seam allowances" sleeves.

Which I didn't figure out until after I'd been good and had sewn the side seams in preparation for setting in proper two-part sleeves, sad that I wouldn't be able to do that procedure MalePatternBoldness shared, with its natural top stitching.

Then I started pinning the sleeves and realized

The second seam aligned with the side seam.

I could have sewn these sleeves flat.

I have made a big note about that on the pattern envelope, along with the notes about what Butterick pattern it's been reprinted as, and the notes about the finished chest measurements (40" for the size small B34"-36", that I cut), and a half inch line to help pick out buttons.  Just because I don't make the changes the pattern expects doesn't mean I make no changes.