Burda 7767 - Pirates ahoy!

Finally I can post about this shirt.

This is my February contribution to the Stashbusting Sewalong, the creation of the lovely Cindy and Emily. February's challenge was aptly named the "Love challenge" and so I decided to make a shirt for Mr N. Which he challenged me to make last year some time.

Encouraged by the two rogues galleries from the amazing Carolyn, I used Burda 7767

In my stash, I had some dark grey cotton with a thin white stripe. The fabric has a slight stretch, which I hoped might help with the fit. I also love to sew these fabrics.

Having taken Mr N's particular measurments, checked those against the pattern as well as against a favourite RTW shirt in the wardrobe, I finally decided which size to make. I definitely measured twice, if not three or four times before cutting.

This shirt was definitely a labour of love. One of my own aims for the year was to produce clothing which was more wearable and with a better quality of finish. Consequently I decided to make this with lapped seams. No pinking or French seams, let's make it like any other men's shirt and finish it with lapped seams. I've never used these before, so it was quite a learning experience, particularly when there's a curve in the seam.

This is the underarm seam, check out those lapped seams all joining together.

I also followed MrsC's instructions and made sure the pocket lined up exactly.

 

I wish I'd used slightly stiffer interfacing. I had a lot of interfacing in my stash, but some of it was so old and after a panic email to local friends, I decided to cut my losses and chuck out the old stuff that wasn't sticking. This delayed the construction somewhat, as some of the main pattern pieces needed recutting.

Mr N knew I was making the shirt (it's not easy making things without him finding out!) and so we went button shopping together. As you can see we chose some plain white buttons for the front. These were going to be used for the cuffs... Until Mr N saw these...

Yep, some jolly roger pirate flags! :-) I guess I could have tried to make these with a double cuff so he could wear cufflinks, but these buttons negate the need. Aren't they fun? You like? Well even if you don't, we do and more importantly Mr N does, so...

The shirt was a double love challenge in one way, since the end of February was Mr N's birthday and I made the shirt so he could take it with us for his birthday long weekend in Queenstown. This was why the picture in the last post showed the shirt on a hanger. So for your delight and delectation, here is the man himself modelling the shirt I made...

 

Like me, Mr N is not of the modelling persuasion and we took these the evening he wore it for the first time, but he's happy with the shirt.

The only problem are the sleeves... They are too long. If I make the sure again I will probably shorten them, but I think what I could do for now is to move the pirate buttons across to ensure the cuffs do up more tightly. This will at least keep the sleeves off his hands. I'm not touching the buttonholes, trying to make buttonholes sized to fit those flags was not easy!

The nitty-gritty
Fabric: Grey cotton with a slight stretch, bought from Global Fabrics last November/December time (not sure if this counts as stash or not, but it certainly went in the stash pile before I considered cutting it...)
Trims: White buttons for the front and jolly roger flag buttons for the cuffs, all from Spotlight.
Pattern: Burda 7767
First worn: An evening out in Queenstown, South Island for Mr N's birthday
Worn with: Black trousers from Rodd and Gunn, Wellington.