Finally finished! The fitted shirt (Butterick 5333)

Well, this seems almost like a let-down after all the muslins, but the fitted shirt from Butterick 5333 is finally complete! And I love it!!

Putting together the shirt was a little bit of a pain. The most painful part was probably the fabric, which is a silk/wool blend and very prone to unraveling and leaving little bits everywhere. Also, it was very itchy. The pattern called for the bodice and midriff pieces to be self-lined, which I did, but when I sewed it together it was (A) ITCHY!! (B) pretty bulky and (C) full of ripples.

I ripped out the lining and recut using lining fabric. The final is much nicer, although I wish I had cut a lining piece for the skirt part of the shirt, because I like things to be finished and it ended up being sort of strange having to finish things just on one piece. I ended up using bias tape to cover the seam allowances and the part of the zipper tape that showed on the bottom half of the skirt. I also used hem lace to hem it up.

The lining and the bias tape

It was sort of a pain to get the lining in correctly - I always have a problem tacking down the lining a little short so that the outside of the shirt is a bit baggy. Also, the silk/wool fabric was a bit stretchy from the way it was woven, so the lining was smaller than the shirt after all of my ripping and resewing. I had a hard time getting everything to line up by the zipper and it looks sloppier than I'd like...

Ooooo... that lining is a mess!!

Also, since I used a different colored lining and it was hard to understitch very far, I was worried about the yellow peaking out. I don't think it does, but am still toying with making some nice little bias bindings from the silk/wool fabric for the arms and neck - just to be sure!

I really, really love the shirt and will probably use this pattern again! Here it is with a few different looks!

 

Up next... well, it's actually already sewn, but McCall's 5811, a full-circle skirt, done up in the same silk/wool fabric - I'm wearing it on the left photo, but need to put on the waistband, let it hang for a few days (perhaps a few months, seeing how stretchy this fabric is!) and hem it. I'm thinking of moving on to the suit jacket from Butterick 5147 if I can gather my strength enough to cut out the pattern pieces!!

And just to recap from the very first post on this shirt... I started with the 'look' from the fall Louis Vuitton line, picked out the Butterick pattern and ended up here....

I'm happy!! I also reviewed on patternreview.com!