Simplicity 1093 - Snow White Shirt

The shirt for my Poison Ivy costume is finished! I had made a mock up of this in white and it looks really good with my costume but I think the green really pulls everything together.

This pattern is pretty easy to follow. The only thing I do not like is the neck facings. They wouldn't stay down and kept rolling up and showing. I tacked them down with a top stitch on the green version instead of doing the under stitch. The facings not staying flat might have been because I used a very stiff cotton on the white version.

If you make this in white I HIGHLY suggest adding two layers of the front piece. One layer is pretty see through so if you don't have something covering your breasts, or a bra on, people will see everything you got.

I modified the sleeve pattern to be six inches longer than the original. I don't like puffed up sleeves being that short. I like my biceps covered. I will explain my process for that later on.

The first thing I did was to stay stitch the arm holes, back collar, and shoulders.

The sides were then sewn up using French seams. Left the shoulders open for now so I could adjust them if the neckline was too low. On the first one I made I used the largest size to fit my bust but the neckline was too open. For this version I cut a size down for the neckline and shoulders but left the armholes and sides the original size.

A narrow hem was added to the bottom by folding it 1/2" and then 1/4" and sewing it down.

The shoulder seams were sewn together with French seams and ironed. 

Then I started working on the sleeves. I used the pattern and tracing paper to make a longer sleeve. At the arrows on the sides that show where to attach the sides together I drew a straight line. I also used my cutting mat to make sure the line was straight by lining up the arrow on the pattern.

I dragged the pattern piece down five inches making sure it lined up with my cutting mat and drew a line at 5 inches. 

Since the side seams are angled, to make the wide, gathered bottom edge, I used a ruler and drew a line out to each side so I could account for the change in width. 

Then with those drawn I lined up the pattern piece on each edge, matching where the red lines are in the picture above, and drew out the bottom and elastic placement line on each side and marked where they met in the middle. Now I had a new sleeve pattern.

Then cut out 1 1/2" strips of the fabric to make the elastic casing and fed it through my bias tape maker and ironed it. 

 

The casing was then pinned on the sleeve and sewn in place. 

I made a narrow hem, just like on the bottom of the shirt, on each sleeve.

Using my arm as a measurement, I cut the elastic to size. I fished it through the elastic casing and kept a pin on the end to keep it anchored while I gathered the fabric along the elastic. I basted both ends of elastic down close to the edge. 

Then I used French seams to join the edges.

I gathered the top edges between the marked lines and then sewed them onto the shirt. 

 

Now it was time for my least favorite part, the facings. I don't like them. I would have sewn this shirt with just two layers of fabric but I didn't have enough to cut out 4 top pieces. On the white shirt I made the facings where horrible. They didn't want to lie flat and when I put the shirt on they kept showing. Part of that was because I used such stiff fabric.

I cut them out and applied interfacing to them. Then I stitched them together using French seams.

 I ironed under a 1/4" on the outside of the facing and sewed it down.

 

I try to conserve the interfacing fabric as much as possible. Not because it's expensive or anything but because I don't see why I should throw chunks of it out when it can all be fused together. It's never seen and I've never had an issue from it being patched together.

I attached the facing to the collar of the shirt and stitched it down.

I cut notches in all the curves and then clipped the seam allowance down really close to the edge. This was because instead of under stitching I was going to top stitch. I tried it their way. It sucked and didn't do anything about keeping the facings tucked down. I have a couple of shirts from Target that I am planning to do this too because the facings keep coming out. It's very frustrating.

So I ironed the facing under and top stitched 1/8" away from the edge. It looks fine to me. Some people don't want to have the stitching line showing but it doesn't bother me at all. I also stitched the shoulder seams  to the facings to that they would stay pinned under there.

The last step was to gather the V point. I marked the spot where it was to start and then just fished a needle through with no specific length to the stitches. Then I gathered it down and tied it.

 

Here is the shirt with my Poison Ivy costume!

Thanks for reading!!