Someday I will make McCall's 5675 from 1977 in a way the pattern wants
but this isn't quite it.
Actually, with a bit of thought, I may not actually ever make this shirt the way the pattern wants, because it wants to use facings for the cuff and neckline openings. I have started using continuous laps, and probably always will on this pattern from now on.
There's an issue in the photo above. Every once in a while, one of the microscopic yarns in this knit net fabric would get caught on an invisible flaw on one of the feed dogs, causing a big pull that left a tiny hole. It happened just past the lowest point of the front opening slash here. I treated the pulls with Fray Check, which shows up as a slightly shiny spot here.
At first I was very miffed that this happened front and center, but I realized it would be fine, because: Bow.
The other major pull happened when I was sewing the bottom hem (which I did without pressing, using the magnetic seam gauge to guide a half inch double fold as I sewed.)
This should be obscured by being tucked in, or at least by being so far from any focus features that no-one would look for it. But, considering this will only ever be worn under jumpers or vests or the like, it's most likely going to be under something.
Beyond finishing the slit openings with continuous laps and adding an inch on the fold to the front and back, the big way I ignored what the pattern wanted was by making it from this super sheer flocked dot net, and figuring that demanded french seams whenever possible.
The sequence of sewing was pretty easy to figure out for most of the construction, especially after I gave up on figuring out which side was the face and which side was the reverse of the fabric (the only clear tells were when there were occasional bits of ick stuck in the flocking--I've seen flocked nets and tulles where the face was obvious, because the base fabric was clearly visible on the back of each flocked dot, but...not so much here.)
It did take a few tries to get things sewn from the right direction on the collar.
Fortunately, the cotton thread slid right out of the (probably) nylon net once the thread was carefully (so. so. carefully.) snipped near the back tacking, so picking out the thread to re-sew wasn't as tedious as it could have been.
I did not attempt french seams where the collar connected to the neckline, nor where the sleeves attached to the cuffs, because both of those areas involve gathering.
One of the selvedges of this fabric--Walmart pre-cut from a few years ago--had a few inches of un-flocked area, so I used that for the continuous lap strips and also in the cuffs for at least a nod to interfacing.
The buttons are probably vintage, and there were exactly two in the stash, still on the backer. The buttonholer wasn't exactly qualified to guide something this lightweight, but it wasn't as bad as I expected, and of course there's Fray Check on every buttonhole zigzag.
I didn't take a picture of the back of this, because it really looks like the front, but I did take pictures with the previous shirt, because the idea of layering this shirt with that shirt is what prompted me to make the shirt I'd been imagining from this fabric since I bought it.
It should work well under jumpers, too. I just...need to make more of those...
And, maybe, someday, I'll make this shirt closer to how the pattern wants it. Or not, because I drafted a short sleeve option for this years ago and will continue to use that--oh, and, a dress version, too...
Anyway, yeah, this definitely qualified as an Unwise Sewing Adventure
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