I'm finally finished my Granville buttondown shirt! I was sick and so it ended up taking me a little longer to finish than I wanted to. I'm done now, so I'm excited to share it with you.

Materials

• 100% Cotton Oxford Shirting
• Muslin Interfacing
• Thread
• Buttons

The oxford shirting is nice. It is smooth and has some body. It doesn't drape as much as a lighter shirting fabric.

Pattern

Sewaholic Granville


Alterations

My last post went over in detail all of the fitting alterations I made.

I also made one alteration for styling. I added pintucks along the front button band. There are four 1/8" tucks per side.


Before I made the tucks, I cut out the front pieces while leaving a few inches of excess on the top, bottom, and centre of the piece. I then marked them out where I them to be in chalk.


I don't have a special pintuck foot. What worked for me was to use my blindstitch hem guide and put my needle in the left position. This made the tucks an even 1/8". After I made the tucks, I went back and cut out the shirt fronts.


My swayback alteration and waist and hip alterations worked very well. I love how well this shirt fits back there. This is usually one of my biggest problem spots. I might have to narrow the back shoulders a bit more, but it looks pretty darn good.


I had a lot of fun sewing the collar, cuffs, and placket. They took time, but were a fun challenge. Well, except that my machine was having trouble over the parts with many layers and the bobbin thread was not being pulled up properly all of the time. When I got to the second cuff (after I did everything else, of course), I found that the right combination was using a walking foot and a size 90/14 needle.

I have the same shirtmaking book that Tasia mentioned and was using it for tips.


The book is Shirtmaking by David Page Coffin and I recommend it to anyone who wants to make fancy dress shirts.


I definitely feel spiffy in my new shirt. I think I'm finally learning how to make shirts fit. Time to go back to some of my other Sewaholic patterns and make them even better!