Recital Shirt - View A

This shirt wasn't commissioned like the View B pattern test that I blogged about yesterday. But there I was, with a free evening and piles of fabric and lovely patterns looking at me and suddenly I found myself in a cutting frenzy.

I had some perfect shirting fabric picked up a year earlier at a Phillips Shirts fabric sale and I knew it would suit the View A of the Recital Shirt very nicely. And well, that was already printed, traced off and sewn through once...

View A differs from View B in that the front pleats are absent, so the princess seams are more apparent. Also the tuxedo winged collar is replaced with a regular mandarin collar and the option of putting in a ruffle. Otherwise the sleeves and back are the same.

This shirting cotton is quite narrow and I had bought an arbitrary two metres (or maybe two and a half from memory) with no plans for what to do with it. It was a very tight squeeze to get the shirt cut out and so there was no fun to be had trying to perfectly pattern match the back yoke or get tricky in any way like that.

But after my shifty, squirrely linen it was an utter delight to sew this perfect shirting cotton. I don't have a great close up photo of the pattern but it is ropes, hooks and pulleys and has a very Hermes vibe. I thought with the Hermes thing going on and the lightness of the cotton, the ruffle collar, while not usually my style, would be fun to add.

I like it open like this, but I have to confess that if I button it up the look is a bit too much like an old fashioned lamb chop for me. Does anyone still use those frilly paper things on the end of lamb cutlets or does that only exist in the lexicon of cartooning nowadays?

I think I may be about to show off the wrong sleeve placket... The other one, the one I didn't photograph, has a freakishly lucky bit of pattern matching where the placket is a perfect continuation of the pattern on the sleeve. You'll just have to take my word for it. Or you could invite me out to a fancy lamb restaurant and I'll wear my shirt and show you.

It wasn't until I was about to start cutting that it dawned on me that a vertical stripe pattern and the curved princess seams might make for a weird looking shirt. But I think it still works. In fact a finer stripe could look really cool with the change in direction of the fabric along that princess seam.

I've been quite generous in the size I chose here (straight size 12). There's a few months between taking my measurements for the first pattern test and getting this second version photographed and I've been on a bit of an eat-less-muffins regime. It would be an interesting exercise to size down and really fit this shirt using a fabric with a bit of stretch. But then I don't wear shirts much at all and certainly wouldn't have use for an ultra-fitted shirt. So, it would be an interesting exercise in fitting, but not one that I care to be bothered with right now.

I've got one more shirt to share with you tomorrow and then I'm drumming my fingers waiting for the new Liesl + Co patterns to arrive as I keep finding and buying great fabrics for making Flipper a shirt. I guess it will be his turn next.