Butterick 3475: A sewing milestone

We've reached a sort of sewing milestone around here.

My smallest boy has finally grown in to some of the clothes I sewed for my biggest boy. Although I've known how to sew pretty much my entire life (Thank you, Mom!), I didn't really sew consistently until about five years ago, when I was pregnant with Myra. I started by sewing slings for babywearing, and before I knew it, making clothing for the kids, Mitch and eventually, for me. My first big clothing project was matching shirts for Logan and Mitch. I blogged about it here - before I even had a separate sewing blog.

I used this pattern at least a half dozen times in several different sizes. It was my go-to boys pattern up until I found Ottobre. The pattern is Butterick 3475, and amazingly, it is still in print! The brown shorts Duncan is wearing above are also from this pattern. Logan's wearing them in the top picture.

When I pulled this shirt out of the box it had been living in for nearly 5 years, I flipped it open to see how it was constructed, and I thought some of you might like to see my humble beginning. If I recall correctly, the fabric is a poly/rayon blend with a linen like appearance. It frays like mad, but as you can see, I didn't finish any seams. In fact, while the bottom hem is nicely double folded, the sleeve and pocket hems are a single fold. I can't believe this is still holding together, but it is! At least I zigzagged the facing edge. I'm pretty sure the pattern told me to do that.

OK, I'm kind of proud of that smooth, rounded pocket. Nice work, Past Katie! But what is up with the buttonhole placement? They're like an inch away from the edge of the shirt. And the buttonholes themselves are no work of art either. Janome makes a pretty skimpy buttonhole if you only go over it once. I clearly only went over it once.

More shameful unfinished seams, here. This is inside the collar at the shoulder seam. This collar is constructed with a cut on front facing that wraps around to the shoulder, covering the collar seams there. The back neck seams are clipped and tucked inside the collar, which you are supposed to hand sew down. Ahem. You can see that my aversion to hand sewing is not a new thing.

So, even though my sewing was far from perfect, both my busy toddler boys have comfortably worn these shirts, and I suspect they'll survive another couple of kids as well. I wanted to share this with you, so that you can see that wherever you are on your personal sewing journey, what you make and do has value, and the more you create, the more you'll learn. Happy sewing!!