I made a shirt!!!!

I'm really excited about the make I've got to show you today for multiple reasons.  Firstly, I made a shirt which feels pretty epic.  And ok, I know I'm about a million years after the rest of the sewing world but I really don't care.  Secondly this shirt allowed me to use multiple things from the darkest depths of my stash.  I bought the Grainline Archer pattern in a black Friday back in 2014 and then managed to ignore it for almost 2 years!  Also The fabric is one that I inherited from my Grandma's stash and has been lingering for a long time in my stash.

Now I'm going to put this out there right now, I know there is quite a lot wrong with this shirt however, it still isn't killing my euphoria at having successfully made a shirt. To start with it's huge!!! I made a size 10 and I feel like I'm drowning, I know it's meant to be oversized but this is ridiculous. Although I recently wore this to a sewing class (more on this when I'm done) and the teacher didn't think it was too big, so maybe I just don't like the oversized look, I prefer my clothes to be a bit more fitted.

I followed the online tutorials which I found really clear and such a good resource. My brain couldn't quite grasp the written instructions and the tutorials were so helpful. Actually as everyone in the sewing world has mentioned, the instructions/tutorials are so good that they take the difficulty out of the many steps to making a shirt.

I took my time over this shirt and it all came together like a breeze. Actually the only difficulty I had was in some of the top stitching but this is because my machine really doesn't like more than 2 layers of fabric. I'm hoping to upgrade my machine soon which hopefully will resolve this technical issue.

While it had taken me ages to put this fabric to use, I love how it works for this shirt.  I also love how it allowed me to play with the direction of the checks.  The pockets and yoke are cut out on the bias which gives it a fun contrast. Clearly I'm not the only one who enjoys playing with gingham, Karen's ginghamalong is here to inspire us all to play with gingham.  This is going to be my entry for her ginghamalong, however, it has also inspired me to go back to a gingham refashion that's been lingering in my UFO pile for at least a year, you can't beat a bit of gingham!

I'm excited to have another go at this pattern with some sizing alterations! I would also like to try a more fitted style shirt. One of the things I love about independent pattern designers is the confidence they can help us to build with a really well designed and explained pattern! Thanks to Grainline for helping me build a new skill set.