Tuesday Project Roundup: Oxford Forever

I finished the “square” shirt I was planning a couple weeks ago and, barring some construction issues, I love it.

The pattern is the Style Arc Blaire Shirt, modified to have a one-piece front and no overlay, with the back shirttail slightly longer. (After I had bought this pattern, Closet Case Patterns released their Kalle Shirt which is already drafted to be what I really wanted. Maybe that’s next.)

The mods were easy enough to do and this isn’t a complicated pattern but if I make this again I’ll take the curve of the hem down quite a bit. I knew it would be tricky to get curves that steep to behave nicely in a foldover hem, but I didn’t realize how tricky.

I tried a foldover hem, I made self bias tape and tried a faced hem, I debated a narrow hem…and finally I’d fiddled with  it for so long I just fudged the area around the side seam with the tiniest of foldovers, put some Fray Check on the inside, and called it a day.

I intended this to be a wearable test of the pattern so it was pretty easy to let the hem go (especially after hours and hours). The fabric was maybe a little too nice to use as a test: lovely, dense hydrangea-colored oxford from Tissu here locally. I haven’t sewn with a real shirting fabric in a long time and it almost folded itself into crisp corners and smooth felled seams.

They had the same oxford in white when I was in last…maybe I should do a classic white shirt next.