Daughters for His Glory

Greetings sisters!

Today I want to share another sewing tutorial or 'how to' for you in case it can ever be of any help to you. It will be for a simple shirt I was able to make for myself and I'm basically just sharing what I learnt and do. It's a work in progress as I learn to be able to sew simple things that we women need to dress biblically and pleasing to a holy God.

So I've finally got this all together which I have been working on for awhile and so hope it might be of some help to someone now or further down the track.

Just a quick note here first, that I drafted the pattern from a shirt I already had that I liked. It was a long sleeve so I wanted a bit shorter sleeve also. The good thing about sewing your own clothes you can modify things a bit.

Drafting a pattern from an existing shirt is quite simple to do and I am not going into greater depth here but basically copy each part onto some paper (you can use plain white gift paper or similar). The good thing is you can just contact me if anything doesn't make sense or you need any help. And no I don't claim to know much but I just love to sew the simple things we women need to clothe ourselves biblically for God's glory in obedience to Him! And it is a blessing to be able to share with others or help anyone be able to do that for themselves too!

Ok so let's get onto this...

I was asked for the measurements of the pattern I made...so I share the pictures here too. I guess they may be of some use if you didn't have a shirt to copy from and you are a small to average sized woman. That's another good thing we don't care about sizes so much as if it's too big that's fine too.

(Measurements are in cms.)

Not sure if they are any help but I include them anyway:-)

I used plain cotton fabric, and a light weight denim is good too.

I'll apologize that I use both metric and English measurements in this but the tape measures have both most times. And yes the thread doesn't match but that's ok!

Lay the back piece along the fold and cut...

Cut out two front pieces. Depending if your fabric has a right or wrong side you will need to be careful how you cut. (My fabric didn't.) You have to make sure you don't end up with a piece with the wrong side facing out (if that makes sense).

(And I added an extra inch for the buttonhole area. I had already added extra within my pattern but that wasn't enough.)

Cut sleeves (x2) on the fold...

Clip a notch or mark the centre of the sleeve (where the fold was)...

Cut the yoke on a fold...

Next time I think I will just combine the back pattern piece with the yoke (as pictured) so as not to add any extra work. I don't see any real need for a yoke (just as I don't for collars).

You will need two strips of interfacing...about 1 inch wide for the button area...

I use this one.

Iron onto the right side of each front piece.

(I did it on the wrong side on one of them...but the one on the right is correct)

Now press down the size of the interfacing (1 inch) and then fold again and press.

Now stitch down both sides on the front...

Sew yoke to back with right sides together...

This assumes you know the basics of sewing already so I am not going into how you sew the seams. You will want to finish them either with a zig zag stitch or an overlocker (as I used).

Sew the shoulder pieces together right sides together.

Time to sew in the sleeves. Lay it like this (right side up)...

Now place a sleeve like this right side down matching the notch with the shoulder seam...

Working carefully with many pins work your way all the way along. This is a bit tricky but I find it interesting to pin two different shapes together.

Then stitch and finish seams. Be very careful in this step. Go slowly as it's a bit more difficult to sew around the curves.

Now match the side seam, right sides together and pin/clip. Stitch together. Repeat on other side.

Now sew the shirt hem. You can either just finish the seam and fold it up once or do a double fold hem. This hem may be a little more difficult to normal as it is on a curve.

Finish the sleeve hem (double fold).

Now for some bias tape making for the neckline. Cut a few 2-inch wide strips at a 45 degree angle from the selvedge. (I needed about 70cm for this shirt.)

Stitch across as shown...

Iron seam flat and trim...

Fold and press in half wrong sides together...

Unfold and fold each side into the centre to the crease line and press.

Then fold back in half and press.

Now attach to shirt neckline. Start at the middle on the shirt back and unfold the bias tape matching right sides together as pictured.

Start sewing about 10cm in from the end where the buttonholes are to be. Sew in the crease and stop about 10cm from the other end. This is just what I do and in my limited shirt sewing experience, works best.

Trim the seam allowance a little...

Now it's time for the buttons. I did these 9cm apart. I sewed them on with my machine...but you can hand sew or however works best. I needed 7 buttons.

First check where the top button should be by putting the binding in place and marking the spot where it should be. And then at 9cm (or so) intervals to the bottom.

(The reason I do the buttonholes first before finishing the binding is because I had trouble sewing the buttonholes with the binding in the way of the machine.)

Then mark the place for the holes.

Make sure to test sewing the buttonholes well before starting sewing onto the shirt. It all depends on your sewing machine so I can't say how this is to be done.

Time to sew the rest of the neck bias tape in place.

Now right here in this next step I am going to say I really am not sure how to do this the best way but this is how I did it this time. I know there must be a better way but for now until I have the time to find that this was what I did. You can let me know if you know of a better way.

Continue to stitch in the cease to the edge...

(Yes part of the buttonhole got covered...but that worked out fine)

Trim off the excess bias tape to about 2cm...and press in the edge...

Fold over...

And then towards the back...

Now you will need to do a tiny bit of handsewing here. I know there must be a better way...but I don't know of it right now. If I learn of it I can come back and modify this and share what I learn:-)

Just stitch through the back side of the bias tape and it won't be visible on the front.