I’m going to attempt the Classic Shirt Sew-Along this week.  Stay tuned for progress and results.

Results:

I finally completed my first Classic Shirt.  I started the shirt as part of Liesl’s sew-along, but since I was out of town a few days, I’m a little late finishing.  It’s probably been 30 years since I’ve made a shirt, so this was a learning experience for me!  I consider this first effort to be a “wearable muslin” — it will probably eventually end up in a quilt.

I love Liesl’s digital patterns.  It takes a little effort to tape the pieces together, but layers are wonderful!  It’s much easier to cut the pattern when looking at only one size.

The pattern was very straightforward, but the daily details on the sew-along blog were also very helpful.  I learned several things making this first shirt.  One — I didn’t really like the use of interfacing.  I thought the collar especially was too thick and bulky.  In researching interfacing options for my next shirt, I discovered that I wasn’t using featherweight interfacing — no wonder it seemed a little bulky.  I like the unique method of completing the collar, yoke, and cuffs — even though I did have to correct a few mistakes made from not reading the instructions closely enough.  I also made one other mistake — I trimmed the wrong side for the set-in placket.  Oh well….

I didn’t make any fit adjustments on this shirt — I may lengthen the sleeves by an inch on the next one.  All in all, I think this turned out pretty good.  I want to get brave enough to splurge on Liberty of London fabric soon.

I’m not a model….