One white shirt, two pockets

White shirts have a shorter life span than some pieces, I've found. The white becomes dingy and the stains are in a place where no amount of boro design will save them. And so I will cut them up for quilts and other small pieces.

I added a button to an otherwise weak juncture in the construction at each sleeve cuff.

And, as it happens, white shirts are great fun to make. This one is based on a tutorial in Sew Confident from the Sewing Workshop. It is a hybrid of the Liberty shirt and the MixIt shirt. Their version is more of a tunic length but I kept the original length of the Liberty with its deep hems and pretty miters.

If you are familiar with these two patterns, you can probably see that the neckline is from the MixIt and the rest is the Liberty with shorter sleeves. I think the V neckline of the MixIt is sweet, especially when the tiny collar is omitted. And the Liberty hem is always appealing to me. I really like those diagonal seams in the front and top-stitching the facings creates a faux princess line.

The tutorial suggests that you shorten the sleeves at the shorten-lengthen line but I was pretty sure that would make the sleeves too tight on me. So I shortened mine 3" at the hemline and redrew the cuff portion. You may be familiar with this easy formula for redrawing the hem facing/cuff: fold the tissue along the new hem line and trace the side seams.

The fabric is a cotton shirting purchased at Gail K in Atlanta. They have such wonderful men's shirting. This one has a dolby weave so it's not just a plain white shirt.

Of course, Diane Ericson's pocket challenge is on-going so I added a pocket. It's placed too high in the picture at the top but I fixed that. It has an inverted pleat and a flap. The first version was too large so I'll save that for another project. It was fun to just play with a small piece of fabric, folding until it pleased me.

The pocket structure is a little more visible here:

I am enjoying following along with Diane's pocket challenge on Instagram. Hers are always so artful, whereas mine are more utilitarian.

This zippered pocket was added to my jeans vest after I wore it for the first time. Originally I constructed it with only one pocket - the breast pocket. I decided then that I'd enjoy it even more if it had another larger pocket. I was able to harvest a pocket from the scraps remaining from the raggedy jeans, as well as the zipper. The panel above the zipper is from the fly! I simply top-stitched it down, but it does not show much at all on the exterior. I like that it is behind the shadow of a pocket from the original jeans.

Now it's even more fun to wear!