A unique shirt for a distinguished gentleman

Pieter is one of those rare men who not only enjoys stylish clothes, but also has a complete idea of what exactly he wants his clothes to look like. And of course he’s come to the right place.

 

Pieter’s first shirt will be a simple replication of this one he left with me (I get the feeling he’s testing me a bit), in this great white fabric and cord detail.

 

 

Which as usual seems easy to insert until you starts thinking about the actual logistics.

 

I’m now not actually sure that a continuous cord from the collar tip along the button stand is possible, and may have to be combined from two separate cuts. Only time (and dedication to innovation) will tell…

 

Pattern successfully plagiarised from the sample shirt, with the requisite modifications it’ll be time to cut the fabric.

For as long as I’ve been sewing I’ve (with pretty much no actual reason) favoured the symmetrically sewn placket (the pieces on a sleeve cuff that form the vent). But since it’s actually a rather tricky technique to get right, and can come out a bit bulky, I thought I’d try my hand at the folded placket and see how it turned out (thanks Michael Coates of YouTube for an excellent tutorial!)

 

How I’ve managed to go so long without switching to this method is beyond me! It’s so much faster, easier and a lot neater! Although I’ll confess to having had to do it twice to get it right, I certainly won’t be courting that other method again any time soon.

We’re still needing to determine the exact fit of the shirt, so for now it remains its shabby half-done self until it’s time to do the final sew.

 

I really like the cord detail on this shirt, the white on white just comes across so classy.

Yes I realize I did the collar inside out! I’ll correct it when I do the actual sewing. STOP JUDGING ME!!

So the cord on the collar was ditched because it’s not possible to get completely straight, still leaving me with the impossible task of a continuous line of cord from the collar stand down the button stand. Two days straight of chewing my fingers to the bone and I think I’ve got the technical problem sorted. Now just the actual execution…

 

 

It turns out with the cord interfering with the structure of the collar, everything’s being moved around and not sitting properly (eish). Another undoing, redoing by hand and fitting will hopefully bring us to the brink of perfection…