V 1215 Fini!

Back longer than front

Contrast placket & band

After over a month of tweaking a muslin, fiddling with pin tucks, learning shirt components, and really enjoying the whole process, I have finally finished Vogue 1215, a Chado Ralph Rucci design.

Lessons learned:

• I must start with a smaller size and then accommodate bust and hips. Tweaking the shoulders was not easy.
• Tunics are not a good look for me now. I shortened this to a more typical shirt length, but the back is still longer than the front. I will wear it for a while and decide if that needs to go. 
• Twin needles produce a better look than pin tucks when the tucks intersect, and are on the bias, and include a shoulder dart. All that is needed is to tighten the tension on the bobbin thread and stitch from the right side of fabric. 
• Though I wanted to use flat-fell seams throughout, they distracted from the design on the top sleeve seam, so they were removed. Yep, did the serger thing there. I did that on my set-in sleeves too. And I like it.
• My automatic buttonholer on my Bernina did not like the collar band. The older button hole foot that requires I pay attention worked just fine.
• You can edge-stitch after it is finished - just have to weave thread tails back into the garment.
• Men's collar stands are edge-stitched ALMOST all the way around. There is a 1/4" gap right by the button or buttonhole.
• I love contrasting fabrics in (slightly) hidden places.
• There is (almost) always another way to do anything. The pattern calls for finishing the hem and all the seams with bias binding from the fashion fabric. I initially thought I'd do that because I do love binding. But ultimately I chose to roll the hem and finish the side seams in one pass. I used a flat-fell seam on the shoulder.

Finishing the hem and the side seam raw edges

flat-fell shoulder seam, shoulder darts, twin needle treatment