A Negroni shirt for my husband (part 2)

This weekend I finally got the chance to take some photos of my husband and the Colette Patterns Negroni shirt that I made for him. Every time I look at it I want to leap straight in to making another one - this shirt was just so lovely to sew together. The fabric was very kindly supplied by Rachel of Ray-Stitch (Rachel was keen to have a photo of a finished Negroni shirt for her shop's wonderful gallery). The fabric I chose can be found here - it's a an organic crossweave cotton in pale blue, which almost looks grey at times (I love fabrics where you can't quite pin down the colour). I'm told it's the most lovely material to wear at this time of year as it's slightly thicker and warmer than regular shirting.

The shirt is wonderfully slim fitting, not in a too-small sort of way, but more in a fitted-by-design way, which is perfect for my tall and lean husband. For reference, my husband is 6ft 2 and I made him the shirt in a size Medium (if I was making it for a shorter man I think I'd shorten the sleeves a little, as they are generous on my husband's unusually long arms).

It's the details on this shirt that really make me happy:

I really love the little button loop beneath the collar (turning this loop the right way out was actually the most difficult aspect of making the entire shirt). At the back of the pattern Sarai suggests some ways that you can add interest to the shirt, one of which is adding in contrasting facings. At the back yoke I used some of the fabric Lauren Child designed for Liberty, bought for me by my husband as an anniversary gift. It's not particularly clear on this photo, but I also cut the fabric for the pocket on the bias, and there's something lovely about seeing the weave travelling in a different direction.

The patten instructs you as to how to flat-fell all the inside seams, so there's not a raw or overlocked edge in sight. Below is a photograph of what the shirt looks like inside...the appearance of these neat flat-felled seams have made me so happy that I have had to restrain myself from insisting that my husband wear the shirt insideout.

I have wanted to learn how to make a sleeve placket for a few years now, so to have finally made a shirt complete with sleeve plackets is something of a wonder for me - the instructions were incredibly clear (which is so refreshing as I've frequently studied this technique in my dressmaking books and never found the instructions to be clear). I can't wait to start using plackets in the patterns that I draft for my own clothing.



This photo above is one of the only ones that shows vaguely what the shirt is like from the back - it has a small pleat at either side (and creases where people have been illegally sitting down).

As I said to blogless Nina Y, my husband said that having a bespoke shirt made for him was only comparable to having a custom built guitar made...that says it all really: he likes it a lot. If you like sew-alongs (I don't, as I'm hideously impatient and would undoubtedly try to persuade everyone to stay up until midnight so that we could just do the whole sew-along in one day*, however, I do like watching them from the sidelines) then Peter of Male Pattern Boldness is running one for the Negroni shirt. I can't recommend this pattern highly enough: yes, it's been one of those posts where I've had to go along stripping out multiple adjectives, as so frequently happens when I really love something.

Florence x

*I wonder whether an Impatient Seamstress Sew-Along has ever been held before, where everyone makes the same thing over 12 hours...I'm imagining frantic hourly blog updates and all manner of mishaps and unpickings being shared.