Simplicity 2339 Amazing Fit shirt

I have, at last, finished my Simplicity, Amazing Fit Shirt. It wasn’t difficult but, phew, as I grumbled in my last post, there is a lot of work in making a shirt! Anyway, it’s done and here it is

The fabric is a rayon silk mix, purchased from Vogue Fabrics, called Artiste Orchid. I am wearing it with the skirt I made from Vogue 2647 (blogged about here) which is made from a co-ordinating fabric from Vogue Fabrics Early Spring 2011 collection.

Here’s how the shirt looks tucked in

This is my respectable ‘going to the office’ look – only I don’t actually have an office to go to any more but sometimes it’s nice to have this sort of outfit anyway.

Here’s how it looks worn more casually, which is more my everyday kind of look

This is the pattern I used

I made View B (bottom left) i.e. with the collar and with both horizontal and vertical darts but I used the sleeves from View A (bottom right) which have a button and tab cuff thing –

If you want to make this shirt slightly looser fitting, you can omit the vertical darts (as in View A) but I was keen to make an effort to get a pretty close fitting shirt. I can never find a RTW one that fits so I wanted to spend time getting a basic pattern with a good fit that I could adapt in different ways – when I can summon up the energy to tackle another shirt! This pattern has different pieces for A, B, C or D cups and gives a lot of advice on how to make fitting changes, so I would definitely recommend this as a starting point for shirt-making. Also I should mention that the instructions include a neat ‘rolling up’ technique for attaching the yoke and yoke facing to the main body of the shirt without having to do any hand-stitching, which looks much more professional.

Regular readers will know that, alongside this shirt, I have been making a pair of jeans as part of my Pattern Review ‘Blue Print to Blue Jeans’ course (although my jeans are purple, not blue!) They are almost finished and, so far, I’m feeling pretty pleased with them. But more about that soon ……