Simplicity 1544: Men's Shirt

It's done! (I can practically hear you thinking 'finally', hehe.) It did take a while. Some of the time went into matching stripes. Okay, a lot of the time went into that. But some of it also went into my other, concurrent, project, Simplicity pattern 9462. That one had a lot more issues than this shirt, but more on that next time. 

As you can see from the picture, most of the stripes matched up. I'm especially fond of the pockets, which turned out nearly invisible. You can see a close-up of that, and a few more pics, on my Instagram post. I ended up drawing some lines on the pattern paper to mark off the seam allowances, and then used those lines when matching up stripes. It worked out well! I did have to leave off several of the decorative details, because my fabric was just too thick. Pocket pleats and flaps, shoulder tabs, and the decorative tab on the back were all left out.

But on to the important stuff. Oftentimes when I work on sewing patterns, I write myself notes as I go along. In the past, these were short, cryptic words (and sometimes numbers) scribbled on post-it posts. By the time I opened the pattern to use it again later, I couldn't remember what they referred to. So now, I'm writing myself more complete, detailed notes to go in the pattern envelopes, and I'll post them here as well. I followed all the directions, and only had one observation that's not included in the notes. The directions say to sew on the front bands from the wrong side, and then fold them, and topstitch from the front. It did work, but I had a bit of trouble hiding the initial stitching and still catching in the back edge. I felt like it would probably be easier to sew them to the right side, and then fold them to the back, topstitch from the right side, and catch the back edge. I haven't tried it that way, though, so I can't say for sure; I'm going by my experiences with bias tape. Now, without further ado, the notes!

S1544 Pattern Notes:

- Flat-fell the sleeve-to-shoulder seams. This creates the 2nd line of stitching and finishes the raw edges at the same time, so it saves a step and makes a neat finish

- When stitching cuff pieces together, start/stop stitching approx. 1/4" from the edge of the folded side (this makes it easier to stitch the cuffs to the sleeves)

- Make sure shirt fronts are the same length! It's especially important to do this before attaching the front bands. . . 

Bonus Tip: Notched edges of the cuffs attach to the sleeves, for matching stripes/plaids.

 I hope these notes and tips help you out as well if you make this pattern! Happy sewing