Maaidesign Guest Blogging - Atelier Brunette for the bloke

I'm breaking my self imposed rule to (almost) never write blog posts for anywhere other than here or Oliver + S.....

Who tempted this sewing grouch out from under her trash can lid?  None other than the lovely Maaike from Maaidesign. I've sewn a shirt for Flipper using some of the divine Atelier Brunette cotton gauze that she sells, and over on the Maaidesign blog I'm sharing a tutorial for quick, easy and secure sewing of buttons by machine. That's how everyone does it right?

Check out the Maaidesign blog post by clicking on the image below, and then be sure to come back here to hear more pattern and fabric talk (and husband pictures ;) )

I've been wanting to sew a casual, summer shirt for my husband for so long now, and when Liesl + Co released their All Day Shirt I snapped it up in an instant. When the offer of some lovely cotton gauze to make it with came in, I just knew I would have the perfect cool, breezy summer shirt.

I've sewn with a few different double gauze fabrics in the past, ranging from super cheap baby wrap style gauze through to the luxury of Nani Iro. This fabric is as good as it gets. It's lightweight but not see through, soft and fluffy but not thick. And the biggest bonus? It's a standard 140cm wide.

I requested 2 metres for my short sleeved shirt. The pattern indicates a fabric requirement of 3&1/4 yards for size L on 44" wide fabric. I fancy myself as a canny cutter but I was nervous. As it turned out, with this size, I could have (just) cut the long sleeved version after all, on my 2 metre cut. Thanks entirely to that standard fabric width. Nice one Atelier Brunette.

One thing I realised I had never done with double gauze before was sew an interfaced collar. It was a delightful surprise to see how double gauze behaves with fusible interfacing.

The double gauze is two layers of light, cotton gauze that is held together with tiny stitches. In those cheap, baby wrap type gauzes the stitches are really obvious and the fabric has a quilted look to it with lines visible on the fabric. However, these high end double gauze fabrics are invisibly bonded and the two layers of fabric seem to hover next to each other like they're magnetic.

The revelation was that when I fuse iron on interfacing to the wrong side of the double gauze, the right side continues to float over it's interfaced companion and the fabric just seems magically stabilised. Little moments of sewing nirvana, hey.

Since the fabric was proving to be so delightful to work with I decided this shirt deserved french seams all around. The yoke and collar is already stitched in such a way as to get a beautiful clean finish, so that left just the sleeve head and side seams to keep tidy.

I'm not even sure I've pointed that out to Flipper and I don't recall him exclaiming that his shirt was more beautifully sewn than any he's ever owned before. Hmmm.... minus a couple of sewing-blogger-husband points for him. :)

On to the pattern: The All Day Shirt has two views and I've made a kind of combination of them both.

View A is the standard business shirt with a single breast pocket, cut on plackets, clean stitching lines and a collar with pockets for those little plastic collar point stiffener thingies (or LPCPSTs). View B on the other hand is more of a casual work shirt. It has sewn on plackets, a standard two piece collar and double breast pockets with flaps and hidden buttons.

As much as I really want to have a go at Liesl's instructions for that View A collar (with its LPCPSTs), I knew this shirt didn't need such a formal collar treatment, so it's the View B collar. However, I did want the simple, cut on plackets and single pocket of View A. Perfectly easy to mix and match.

The short sleeve was measured to end as a casual just above the elbow length. Allowing for a 1&1/4" hem it turned out I cut exactly on the lengthen/shorten line. They could probably be a touch shorter and I foolishly forgot about that thing where you need to flare back out slightly for the hem allowance. Again, the fabric was kind to me and the sleeve hems behaved with no obvious puckering or tightness.

The size L is exactly as he measured and I made no fit alterations. I could see it was going to be a casual easy fit and that's just what we were wanting. The perfect summery Christmas Lunch shirt!

Thanks to Maaike for the opportunity to sew with some really lovely fabric. The pattern was also a delight and I find shirt sewing is very enjoyable. Especially when you can sew all the buttons on in just a few minutes at the end. - go check out that tutorial if you haven't already and see if there's any of this fabric left while you're there ;)

Details:

Pattern: All Day Shirt by Liesl + Co. View A shirt with View B collar with short sleeve modification

Size: L (as per measurements)

Fabric: Atelier Brunette cotton gauze in Graphite Blue

The fabric was gifted to me in exchange for the tutorial blog content at Maaidesign Blog. My review of the fabric here was not commissioned.