The Granville shirt

Hello all! I’m not even going to claim that normal broadcasting will resume shortly as it, in all likelihood, probably won’t – don’t worry, I have been sewing but m currently having a wee struggle with life, the universe and everything else right now. I’m still trying to keep up with your blogs and makes and have been vaguely following Me Made May on instagram (although not participating – you lot are so bloody clever though! You go Glen Coco) so I’m still here, I promise, just a little quieter than usual. But I do have some good plans for the next few months, so watch this space!

BUT – I do actually have some finished makes! Well, just 2 but still – a blog queue! Yay! I finished my Sewaholic Granville shirt a few weeks ago and have worn it a few times since, but as it turns out finishing a flannel shirt jusin time for spring and summer is probably not the smartest idea…

I bought this pattern months and months ago but it took me a long time to finish – not because the pattern is difficult but because by the time I had finished fitting it I was completely fed up with it! Sewaholic patterns are drafted for pear shaped ladies so that’s a really good starting point for fitting for me personally, but I am a bit more pear shaped than most with quite a pronounced sway back and a bit of a tummy (sad face) so it took me ages to get the pattern to fit properly. I shortened the whole thing by an inch before I even started, increased the width in the sleeve (much easier than you think!), did a sway back adjustment, FBA, sloping shoulder adjustment and drafted between sizes. Talk about a frankenpattern – the paper was a mess by the time I was done! I’m quite pleased with the sway back adjustment though, in the pictures you can see there isn’t too much fabric pooling so I think I’ve almost cracked it.

I spent ages trying to pattern match where possible, which I usually avoid like the plague. The plaid I bought doesn’t have a normal plaid repeat so I decided to try to match up the prominent white and orange stripe where I could instead. I managed to get the front to match, and generally the stripes across the arm line up too, so that was pretty cool! I also wanted to make it more interesting so I cut the yoke on the bias and matched the orange stripe for pretty cool chevron effect. The part I was most worried about was doing the cuff placket – it’s been a really long time since I did one but the instructions in the pattern were really clear and easy to follow. The fabric I used was probably a little too heavy to get a really crisp finish on the plackets but I’m chuffed with how they turned out.

The fabric is a cotton flannel type thing and came from Bernie the Bolt‘s stall at a 1940’s event at Wimpole Hall – I don’t think it was very expensive (otherwise I wouldn’t have bought it haha) but I had originally intended it to be curtains when we moved in to our house. As it turned out, the window I had planned curtains for was miles bigger than I realised and I didn’t have enough, so this sat in my stash for over a year

Chevron-y goodness

before I used it! Bernie the Bolt doesn’t have a website I’m afraid but I’ve seen the stall a number of times at history fairs so he may be at an event near you soon! I did struggle to find buttons though – I wanted a mother of pearl/shell button, but I couldn’t find anything in the right size so I ended up buying some faux mother of pearl ones from John Lewis.

Construction-wise, once I’d got it fitting how I wanted, it wasn’t actually too tricky to assemble. Sewaholic instructions are nice and clear and once I’d made a muslin I was pretty confident I could make this up without having to refer to the instructions. I sewed everything on my Elna and finished the seam

Derp

s on my overlocker.

Overall I’m really pleased with how this turned out and I will definitely be making more Granvilles! I do feel it ended up a little roomier than I would have liked, but that’s ok in a cosy plaid shirt! My next one will be most likely sleeveless so I might be able to nip it in at the side seams to get a better fit. I don’t like anything too figure hugging as I’m incredibly uncomfortable with my body shape but I also don’t like being drowned in fabric as I’m actually quite short – striking that balance on a curvy-petite body is hard!

Hayden and I walked to small local woodland to take these pictures a couple of weekends ago – slightly fewer bluebells than I had hoped for but we did find a mystery source of wild garlic, yummy…

 

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