After the sewing of the Rapunzel dress, I was really looking forward to putting together this little man shirt made from easy to tame cotton.
This is Logan's
Woody costume. He'll wear this with RTW jeans and a purchased
cowboy hat. The vest is from the 06/2009 issue of Ottobre. It's actually a baby pattern and not graded up to Logan's size, but I just added a couple of inches to the length and an inch to the width at center back, and it is perfect. I actually traced, altered, cut and sewed the entire vest at Sewing Summit in the BabyLock sewing room. It was so fun!
The outer fabric is quilting cotton and I lined the vest with flannel for warmth, and bound the front edges with bias strips. In the cartoon, it looks like Woody's vest has a rope-like trim, but I thought this striped fabric on the bias would approximate that look well and give me a nice clean and easy finish.
The shirt is from the 03/2010 issue of Ottobre. I've made it before
here.This time I chose a flannel back homespun purchased at
Cottonwood Fabrics in Sandy. (Thanks to
Sewing Geek for recommending them!) The reason I chose this particular shirt pattern was two fold. I really like the slim fit that it has, particularly for wear under a vest. I also appreciate that it is a seriously simplified version of a man shirt.
The collar does not have a separate stand, rather is shaped to approximate one, and the button bands are cut on and folded over. Even though this is a costume, I used Pam's
shirt crisp interfacing for the collar and cuffs. It is so wonderful to work with, and particularly with this one piece collar, I needed the flexible stability it gives.
The cuffs are one piece fold-over, and the placket is a continuous lap. I did cut the lap binding on the bias, which the pattern didn't call for. I always like a little give in my continuous lap binding. I think it make for easier sewing.
So, true confessions time. When I cut out this shirt, I THOUGHT I had carefully aligned the dominant stripe in the plaid so that I could match it.
But I didn't. And it threw the whole shirt off grain. See how it looks like the back is sloping upwards? Yeah, off grain. So, one side seam is perfectly matched and the other is totally off. I'm so glad this is a subtle plaid, or I would be remaking this shirt. As it is, I'm just going to be unhappy with it. And naturally, he'll decide this is his favorite shirt and wear it every day. Sigh. Just a costume, right? At least the vest covers the back.
