archer shirt variation: v-neck placket

Wutsup Internet pals. After my last post, I received some requests for a demonstration on how I modified the plackets of the Grainline Archer shirt to a V-neck. And I oblige! I like this look because the shirt lays flat against your chest while still framing your neck and face in that nice button-up shirt kinda way. It's slightly more feminine, too, so there's that.

This doesn't involve anything too difficult, despite the long post that follows here. The modification involves three steps: 1) modify the shape of your shirt pattern piece, 2) draft separate plackets to match, and 3) shorten your collar stand. I'll also show you how to actually sew on the new plackets. You can, of course, do all this with any button-up shirt pattern, but I'm showing it on the Archer because it seems likely that more of you guys already have this pattern (or are thinking about getting it) than some rando Butterick pattern or something, right? We're all indie fangirls and we know it.

So if you want to get this look, follow along!

PLACKET DRAFTING INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Assemble the front pattern piece of the Archer shirt. If you need to print a new one for this modification, you only need to print pages 2-4, 8-10, and 14-16 from the PDF. Cut or trace your size.

2. Cut along the vertical line that says "Trim Along Dotted Line for Right Front." The original Archer pattern has you fold under and stitch the placket on the wearer's left side, and attach a separate placket piece for the right side. On this modification, both sides will have two separate plackets so throw away that chunk and pretend it never existed.

3. Cut off the desired amount to create your V-shape in the front. Make sure it doesn't cut way below your bust apex (unless u naughty), but remember that there will be added plackets that will provide more coverage. For reference, I made a point 1" inward at the neck and another point 7-1/2" down, and connected those points with a straight line which I then cut off. Feel free to make the neckline more or less open, higher or lower.

Because I was making a sleeveless version, I went ahead and modified the shoulder and armhole, too. As Jen writes in her sleeveless Archer mod post, you don't want a sleeveless shirt that hangs off your shoulders, so shorten that shoulder seam and blend to nothing at the original underarm. I shortened my shoulder seam by 1-1/2". You'll need to similarly alter your yoke and back pieces, too.

4. Before drafting the plackets, go ahead and draw the seam line on the front edge of the shirt pattern piece. The seam allowance on Grainline patterns is 1/2". This steps just helps with the drafting process for accurate measuring of the new plackets.

5. To draft the plackets, place a sheet of tracing paper over the top of your pattern piece (I use Swedish Tracing Paper). Weigh it down then trace that seam line you just drew. Now draw a parallel line 3/4" to the left of that seam line. 3/4" is the final desired placket width I chose, so if you want a wider or narrower placket, adjust as you please. Connect the top of the two lines by tracing the curved outline of the shirt neckline. Connect the bottoms with a straight perpendicular line that matches the hem of your shirt piece.

So, the blue outline on the tracing paper is now the placket piece without seam allowances on the sides:

6. Add seam allowances to the sides of the placket only, since SAs are already included in the top and hem (traced from the original pattern). My SAs are in green in the photo. Stick with 1/2" if you're using the Archer so it remains consistent with the rest of the shirt construction. When drawing your SAs at the top of the placket, the top bit should continue to follow the curve of the shirt neckline. It will look crazy pointy, but that is all trimmed down later after you sew it on. Cut out your new final pattern piece.

COLLAR STAND MODIFICATION INSTRUCTIONS:

While you have all your pattern pieces and fabric out, let's do this mod now before sewing anything. Remember that you removed fabric from the front of your shirt pieces, which makes the garment neckline shorter around. If you're adding a collar, collar stand, or both, you will need to adjust the pattern piece(s) accordingly. I decided I wanted a "mandarin collar," or just a collar stand with no collar piece, so I'm only showing that modification here. The same theory applies if you're adjusting a collar, too: remove length at the center so the shape and pitch of the ends remain unaltered.

First, calculate how much of the neckline you removed from the shirt on each side. Instead of measuring all the pattern pieces and adding stuff together, just think about the original pattern pieces versus your new ones and do some subtraction. On the original Archer, there is the full neckline plus a 1" placket. For my version, I removed 1 inch from that neckline, then added plackets that are only 3/4". So my shirt neckline now has 1-1/4" less on EACH SIDE, or 2-1/2" less total. I hope that makes sense. I tried to create some diagrams but it just made it seem more confusing.

The Archer collar stand is cut on the fold, so changes made to this pattern piece reflect only one side, though the changes will be doubled once the fabric is cut. Since I removed 1-1/4" from each side of the shirt neckline, I similarly removed 1-1/4" from each half of the collar stand at the center back. I marked a line at 1-1/4" and cut there. This is your new "Cut on Fold" line when you cut your fabric.

PLACKET CONSTRUCTION INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Cut FOUR placket pieces from your fabric. Two of them will be your outer plackets and the remaining two will be the placket facings. Cut two interfacing pieces as well. 

2. Fuse the interfacing to two placket pieces.

3. Right sides together, pin and sew the the facings to their placket counterparts. You will be sewing the outer edge, or the outer curve of the plackets. Trim this seam allowance.

Open the pieces and press the seam to the placket facing (uninterfaced side). Understitch this seam in place.

4. Fold together and press, wrong sides together. The understitching will help the placket facing stay put in the back. Double check the width of your plackets now and trim the raw edges to make everything even if you need to. 

5. You'll now be attaching the plackets as one piece to the front shirt edges. That means you'll sew both layers of the placket and placket facing to the shirt, and the seam will be visible on the inside. I decided not to do a "clean finish" (where the placket facing edge is folded over and stitched to cover the separately-sewn placket seam) in the interest of time and in the interest of me not being interested in a clean finish. Do whatchu do.

Pin the right side of the placket side to the shirt edge. The pointy seam allowance at the top of the placket sticks out awkwardly as it's supposed to, but remember it will be trimmed and pressed back in place later. 

Stitch these seams at 1/2" then trim and finish this seam by serging or zig zagging. Press the seam away from the placket. Topstitch down if ya want.

Your plackets are done! I know you can hardly see them in this fabric, but check out how the neckline now looks when the plackets are overlapped. It will open up more once you put it on a 3D body.

Continue constructing the shirt per the pattern instructions, using your modified collar stand. Some other things to note:

• If you need help sewing on the collar/stand, I have a tutorial on that here. 
• If you made your shirt sleeveless and need help finishing those edges, the Colette blog has a nice post on finishing armholes with bias binding, which is how I sewed mine here (except, duh, I sewed mine in the flat, not the round).
• The buttonhole/button situation will be a little different than your standard Archer (there's fewer of them, yay!), but just make sure you place a button at the fullest point of your bust to avoid placket gaping/bra peekaboo.

Any questions? Holler!

chardon (m. thistle)

PATTERN THROWBACK. To ye olden days of 2013, when it seemed like we were in the midst of an indie pattern boom but were in fact only on the cusp.

Last week I was feeling nostalgic for simpler times, so I bypassed my PDF pattern collection and turned to my paper pattern stash. Remember thems? They arrive in your mailbox like a pretty little present amongst the health insurance invoices and jury duty summons. Then you unfold a large sheet of paper and all the pattern pieces are just laying there looking up at you, and you actually hold the physical instruction pages and flip them left to right like you're some kinda scholar. The last paper pattern I bought was Deer & Doe's Jupe Chardon, or Chardon Skirt, or Thistle Skirt, or however this French-to-English sewing pattern language thing works. It seemed like a fun basic garment to sew so I cracked her open.

Yuck photos.

Chardon is a simple unlined A-line skirt with in-seam pockets and stitched box pleats for shaping at the waist. I liked the no-waistband look and forgiving fit. You can add belt loops or a tie or a contrasting band but I skipped that noise this time. The skirt is finished with a waist facing and a regular zipper in the center back. 

It's a quick sew as long as you choose your waist size properly. I dunno what was wrong with me but I had the completely WRONG waist measurement in my head when I picked the size to cut, so the skirt was basically two sizes too small when I went to try it on after stitching down all those pleats. Luckily with this style, you can adjust all the pleats to size the waist up or down. Just make sure you do your math correctly when altering each pleat so you don't over- or under-compensate. And remember to cut a new facing to fit your fattened skirt. Yeah, this skirt took me far longer than it should have because I have a pea brain.

I made this in a gray striped home decor linen because I apparently enjoy dressing up like a sofa. It was easy fabric to work with and it holds the shape of the pleats nicely. It is pretty poofy, so I tapered the skirt slightly from its original A shape so I wouldn't be mistaken by Philly tourists as the Liberty Bell. Wow, stellar joke, right? If you want to see TRUE POOF, check out what swallowed me whole at work yesterday.

I serged all seams before pressing them open. The bottom of the waist facing is also serged. I'd recommend understitching the facing and tacking it down at the side seams as well so it stays put.

The navy top I'm wearing is a new Archer Shirt, another homage to 2013. Though let's be real; I'm still addicted to this pattern. I modified it by making it sleeveless, curving the front placket into a V-shape at the neck so it lays flat, and omitting the collar but leaving the stand. You can see another version of this variation on my Instagram here. I may blog about that one day because I wear it like twice a week and the fabric was a gift from Internet pen pal and fellow Grainline addict, Ash M. Higgs. 

I like my new outfit but this photoshoot just made me realize the dire situation of my bangs. In half my photos, my bangs are either in my eyes all Grudge girl style, or I'm in the middle of swinging them out of my eyes, which does not at all look sexy beach bombshell like I imagine in my head:

So, are any of you still trying to catch up with 2013's (or earlier) patterns or are you always ready for the next great thing?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

P.S. Reminder! I'm leading a three-week workshop on Sewing Knits at Butcher's Sew Shop in south Philly on Monday nights starting June 30th. If you wanna join up, you can use coupon code 4SQUAREWALLS at checkout to get 20% off the registration fee ! ! ! ! There are a few spots left, so sign up here. Scroll down to Special Workshops.

my 4 favorite shirtmaking tools

I'm thrilled that so many of you have found my tutorial on sewing a shirt collar to be helpful. Thrilled enough to keep talking about sewing shirts. O'boy! I'm continuing to feverishly sew button-downs for my main dude, so I'm slowly learning (er, improvising) all the little tricks to getting better results each time. It's satisfying to watch my skills improve and to figure out my go-to methods that lead to consistent outcomes. Translation: I'm addicted. I also may have accidentally drafted a multi-size men's shirt pattern. Moving on!

Since I'm just a home sewer with run-of-the-mill equipment you can find relatively easily, I thought I'd share with you the extra "tools" I use regularly when sewing shirts to help get the details right. Some of them are hardly tools -- just stuff. This list includes items that I use in addition to normal sewing equipment/notions such as a machine, ruler, seam ripper, etc. So none of these are absolutely essential for sewing a nice-looking shirt. They just make it all a bit easier.

TOOL #1. GLUE STICK

I've always used a glue stick to help attach centered zippers on skirts, ever since I saw this tutorial on Sew Mama Sew a million years ago. Now I use one throughout the shirtmaking process, too, particularly when I need to secure something on the inside while sewing from the right side. To me, glue makes it easier to control the fabric and get it perfectly positioned, and can be faster than basting and more secure than pinning, especially on slippery fabrics that will immediately shift as you remove the pins during sewing. And the stakes aren't that high -- you can easily reposition something before the glue dries... or even after.

Here I use fabric glue from JoAnn's that claims it is water-soluble and won't "gunk up" your machine needle, but I've also used the regular ole office supply stuff in the past. Here's when I use a glue stick:

- To secure button plackets so they're less likely to ripple or drag when you're topstitching them down...

- To secure a pocket before sewing it on...

- To position the inner collar stand's lower seam allowance before edgestitching it in place from the right side...

- And to help make sleeve plackets by properly positioning all the folded parts (by the way, I use Pam's two-piece shirt sleeve placket tutorial which I highly recommend. She also uses glue at one point!)...

TOOL #2. EDGESTITCHING FOOT (edge stitching foot, edge-stitching foot, edge stitch foot, whatever) 

Ever since getting an edgestitching foot (also known as a stitch-in-the-ditch foot or edge-joining foot), my shirtmaking confidence has skyrocketed. It has a centered guide that enables you to sew precisely at 1/16" or 1/8" from a seam or the edge of your garment, or directly within a seam if you need to. Of course it's not impossible to sew close to the edge without one, but I can't tell you how many times I used to seam-rip and redo my edgestitching, especially on the back yoke when there's a long horizontal line where any wave in your stitches is very obvious. I just couldn't stand the thought of people sitting behind me on the subway and staring at my crookedly-stitched yoke. NIGHTMARES.

It sounds fussy but I don't mind investing money in sewing tools that produce satisfactory results almost every time without having to put in much more time or effort to learn how to use it, and this is one of those things. I bought this generic snap-on foot from Amazon that works with most low-shank machines. It was about $10. 

I use it on pockets...

The yoke...

Collar stand...

And sleeve placket...

TOOL #3. SCRAP FABRIC

You've probably heard this before, but one way to get even stitches when topstitching or edgestitching is to ensure your presser foot remains level. Have you ever tried to sew over a bulky seam or continue stitching after a pivot point, but the presser foot just won't move and your bobbin thread gets all tangled? It's likely because your poor foot is stuck trying to move uphill:

If you shove some scrap fabric under the foot behind the piece you're sewing, the presser foot will no longer be tilted up at an angle and it will sew forward much more smoothly. This was a game changer for me when top-stitching collars points and collar stands. No more tiny little struggle stitches on full display around your face!

TOOL #4. SLEEVE BOARD

This is probably one that's only worth it if you sew a lot of long-sleeved shirts (or other kinds of narrow tubes, I guess). Before now, I always just serged all my shirt seams, but now I've been forcing myself to make French seams or flat-felled seams because they're more attractive when the sleeves are rolled up, which for Corey and me is always. Pressing all the way down the sleeve seam is essential for this kind of finish, so it's just easier to have a sleeve board for this process so you can flatten out and fold the seams most efficiently. 

If you're desperate, though, you can just stick a narrow rolled up towel down your sleeves, too, though it will be a bit squishy and may not get your seams as flat.

And that's it! I tried thinking of five tools but these are really the only ones I use regularly. I own some other stuff like an expanding buttonhole placement ruler gauge thingy, but I find it sufficient to measure buttonhole placement with a normal straight ruler.

What are your favorite shirtmaking tools? Any that I haven't thought of? Chime in, buttercups.