Now Sewing: 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.