Big Floral Shirt

I thrifted Simplicity 8042, from 1992, several years ago, because it's just so ridiculous.

I very probably would have worn it in 1992--well, view 1 or 3.  View 2's collar is a bit too...Knock Off Laura Ashley Romantic to align with my tastes.

I got the pattern as a curiosity, never thinking I'd actually make it, in part because it requires a lot of fabric--over three yards of 60" for view 1.  And it needed to be soft, flowing fabric, too.

It turns out, though, that I just needed to take a new look at a piece of fabric that I thrifted in 2017.  It's a large floral print, a lightweight plain weave rayon, in purples and pinks and greens on an ivory ground, over 4 yards of 60" wide, that I had, for years, been looking at and thinking "This would make a lovely flowing dress but I would never wear such a thing, because the pale ground means that every bit of my underwear would show right through."  I never thought of getting rid of it, though, because the print was just so, to be cliché, me.

And then things clicked and I made it into view 1 of this shirt.

And it is, indeed, ridiculous.

It's also a very easy pattern.  My main complications came in edge stitching things that were not instructed to be edge stitched, and in applying the yokes the way I apply collar stands, by pressing under the bottom edge of the top piece before sewing anything, which is considerably harder to do when that edges is as extreme a curve as this.  It looks fine from the outside (which is my entire goal), but the topside edge stitching to hold that pressed edge down did stray pretty far from the inner seamed edge of the yoke, as visible in this picture.

Also visible: how I cannot get a peter pan collar curve to be smooth, even when using the magnetic seam guide to keep the stitching properly aligned with the edge.  It probably has to do with how much I do (or do not) notch the seam allowances.  I decided to be fancy with these and notch each side of the seam allowance separately from the other side, offsetting the notches from each other.  I probably could have made the notches deeper in spots.  I'm acknowledging it, but I'm not worrying about it.

I decided to shorten the body by 3", and I did so by folding out the length at the waist, instead of just cutting off the lower hem, because I wanted to maintain the complete ridiculous fullness of the size medium. It's 72" around

The bust is 68", because of all the gathering to the yokes.  I got the ruffler set close enough to the right amount of gathering on the first try, which helped keep the tedium levels in check.

Because I shortened this by 3", I initially thought I could omit a button, and use only six on the front, plus one on each cuff.  What I ended up doing was putting seven on the front anyway, and then two on each cuff.

If you look at the shadow, you can see that the fabric is thin enough to let the light shine through the sleeve opening.

I serged the visible seams, although, in retrospect, this would have been a good place for french seams.  Maybe if I make this again...?

I pressed the hems up 5/8", then the raw edges to the inside, before starting to assemble anything, as is my usual approach to sewing shirts.  When it's time to sew the side seams, I just unroll the pressed edges a bit, sew them, then trim them and roll them back up, meaning everything is ready to stitch, no need to maneuver the entire garment around on the ironing board.  And there's a lot of garment here.  The most frustrating aspect of the whole project was often just trying to find the edges--or even the sleeves--when everything was piled on the table after being sewn.

Here's the back of the collar lifted to show the yoke, including the one spot where I accidentally stitched off the edge and decided to just sew it again, instead of picking the entire thing out and starting over, and then the spot where I had accidentally gotten a fabric fold stitched on the inside where it shouldn't be, so that stitching did get picked out and stitched again (also instead of starting that edge stitch all over.)

The extra stitching isn't very obvious, and is completely hidden by the collar when it's in place.

I made this shirt very specifically to go with the jumper in the previous post.

Of course I hope to find combinations with other items for both of them, but I do think they look pretty cute together.