Thursday, June 16, 2022

Pattern Bashing: Hacking the Cashmerette Montrose into a button-down top

 


After hearing some comments about "we should initiate a 'Hawaiian shirt Friday'," I decided it was time that I got myself a Hawaiian style shirt (aka "Camp Shirt"). I obtained about 3 yards of "Baby Yoda" fabric on sale thinking that would be fun as a Hawaiian shirt. It's goofy and geeky at the same time. 

I originally considered using the camp shirt pattern that Guy really likes for himself (McCall's 2149), but that vintage pattern is a bit too oversized and boxy for me. Also, since it's a men's pattern, there are no darts. I need to have darts for shaping. I checked a bunch of other patterns I have in stock but didn't find one that worked for what I wanted. 

I don't often make woven garments because I prefer the ease of fit one gets with a stretchy fabric. I've made the Cashmerette Montrose top three times already, and it fits me nicely. That top is a simple woven top with bust darts and a back yoke. The best part is that because I've made it 3 times previously, I have made most of the necessary adjustments to the pattern. This means it would be a good start for my Baby Yoda Hawaiian shirt project. 

I checked the McCall's 2149 pattern and noted that they added 3/4" + 1 seam allowance to center front for the button overlap. It also had 3" wide facings that matched the shape of the center front of the main front pieces. 

Since the neckline of the McCall's 2149 pattern was much larger than I'd want, I grabbed the center front and yoke pieces from my Cashmerette Harrison shirt and traced the neckline onto my Montrose. After tracing, I realized that the Harrison shirt's front neckline was narrower by the width of the button band, so I matched up front and back shoulders, and cut the front neckline so that its width matched the back. 

For actual cutting of the shirt, I lined up the Yodas along the center front line and cut each front individually. I added some length (about 3") to the shirt and curved the hem from the side seam toward center. I also cut the yoke in two pieces on the bias, adding a seam allowance to the center back where the fold line had been. 


 I like the look of the bias Yoda stripes on the upper back. Also, by cutting it on the bias, the upper back has some stretch to it which will make the shirt slightly more comfortable. 

I also cut the sleeves on the bias because I'd done that for the last two versions of the Montrose and found the bias cut sleeves more comfortable than the standard on grain cut.  

For the collar, I folded a scrap rectangle of fabric in half top to bottom and in half again from side to side. This allowed me to have a collar without a seam on the outer edge. I cut it to a trapezoid shape using the Harrison shirt's collar pattern (minus the outer edge seam allowance since that wasn't needed for an on the fold collar cut) as a template. 

I assembled the shirt following a combination of the directions for the Montrose and McCall's 2149 pattern. 

I sewed the shirt using my modern Bernina 830. When I got to the buttonholes, however, I pulled out one of my vintage Singer machines - the Spartan - because the vintage Singer buttonhole attachment makes the best buttonholes. 


It turns out that I had a set of 9 matching buttons and I could easily space the buttonholes by placing each one just above one particular Yoda. I drew lines where I wanted the buttonholes to ensure I placed the buttonholer in the same place relative to the waving Yoda. Above, the butthonholer is in place and ready to sew buttonhole. 


Stitching the first side.


Rounding the corner of first loop.


I always go around twice so that the buttonhole stitching is well-covered. 


Birds' eye view of the machine putting in the buttonholes. Only the area where the buttonhole is being sewn has to be neat, so the rest of the shirt is bunched up on the back of the table. I didn't bother to fix it for the photo so you'd know it wasn't faked.


I was using my Singer Spartan for this project. Anyone notice something "surprising" about it? In case you didn't know, the Singer Spartan did not come with a light, and vintage lights would never be as bright as what you see above. 

I have a little LED light attached to a magnet that I can stick to the underside of the Spartan. Because the light is affixed using a magnet, I can move it to any of my other vintage machines that need a boost with their lighting. 


Singer Spartan with the LED turned off. Pretty dark over there, eh? The blue dot is a reflection of the "ready" light on the LED.


Originally, I thought that this plate was only needed when making buttonholes on machines that you can't drop the feed dogs on. Not true: the plate rests well above the feed dogs, which means that if you don't use it, then the fabric will slide around under the buttonholer and your buttonholes will not turn out. I learned this the hard way by forgetting to use it for some test buttonholes and wondering why the attachment was having so much difficulty properly feeding the fabric - the attachment is a little shorter than the regular presser feet so that when the metal plate is present it firmly holds the fabric in place.

Always attach the plate and really tighten the screw after you've aligned the needle hole. If you don't tighten it enough, the plate will move out of place and you will break a needle. Guess who broke a needle learning that lesson? 

And, here's the finished shirt! 







Here's a close-up of the center front. You can see that I put the buttonholes right above the waving Yoda. Since he repeats every other line, it was easy to evenly space out the buttonholes simply by aligning the top of Yoda's ear with the edge of the buttonhole attachment. 



HAPPY SEWING!!


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