Ottobre 06/2010-28 - the "Abbey Lane" shirt

The first (of seven!!) piece of my Easter sewing is ready!

This is Logan's man shirt.  The pattern is Ottobre 06/2010-28, which Ottobre calls the Abbey Lane shirt.  It is a basic menswear styled shirt, but without the full collar, giving it a mandarin style neckline. It was designed for a checked fabric, so all of the accent pieces, pockets, band, cuffs and yoke, are cut on the bias.  I love that this style included real sleeve plackets as opposed to a continuous lap style cuff.  The fabric is a yarn dyed gingham from fabric.com.

I LOVE a real menswear placket on a wee man shirt!  It just makes me happy.  Ottobre's instructions for putting in the placket are excellent.  I'm looking forward to seeing how the Kwik Sew instructions compare when I sew Mitch's shirt.  You may also notice that I used pearl snaps as the closure rather than buttons.  I had several motives for this.  The first was that this is our last few months in Texas, and I wanted my boys to have cowboy shirts!  Don't be too surprised if a more western style shirt with a front yoke appears soon...  I also recently got a new snap press from Sew Baby, and wanted to try it out.  It was great!  I usually end up taking out half of the snaps I put in.  They get misaligned or bent.  The only snap I had to pull out this time was  the one I installed backwards.  I love snaps on kids clothes, so I'm really excited to have a snap installing tool that really works!

The only other change I made from the pattern was to line the yoke.  I much prefer this finish, and I think it gives the shoulders of the shirt a firmer, more tailored look.  Next up will be Duncan's shirt.  I'm starting to feel pretty comfortable in the realm of man style shirts.  All the details that I used to think were fussy and difficult are starting to be fun.  I particularly love flipping the yoke and having all the seams just disappear inside.  It's like magic!