A sleeveless Granville

Another day, another Granville shirt. This time – no sleeves! Of course, you probably clocked that from the title of the post…

After the success of my first Sewaholic Granville shirt  I knew this would become a staple pattern in my collection. I wear a lot of sleeveless shirts and tops which is why I spent all that time fitting the muslin’s for the checked version – it means it’s now a pretty speedy make!

I used a fabulous cotton lawn from my stash that I’ve had for years. Somewhat surprisingly it came from

A smoother fit across the back (wrinkles from a car ride to ikea haha)

my local market before the range they carried improved significantly! I think this was about £3 a metre, and I bought 2.5m as soon as I saw it. I still have a little over a metre left. The pattern is made up of colours I would usually wear anyway, but the print is a bit more eccentric than I usually go for. I had a bit of a wobbly on social media about whether this would be ‘too much’ for me, but because the print isn’t overwhelmingly big I figured I’d give it a go and wear a cardigan over the top to tone it down a bit if I needed to.

In terms of construction, the only things (apart from no sleeves) I did differently was take off about 1cm from the side seams to create a closer fit. However it wasn’t until I was halfway through assembling the front that I remembered that I had needed to m

Shiny edge-stitch foot

ove the bust dart back down about 3/4”. As I’d gone too far and didn’t want to waste more fabric than necessary by cutting 2 new fronts, I just carried on with the darts a little bit high, but will definitely do this before my next version! I also think I might need to add a little bit more to the FBA as there are a few drag lines, but this could just be because of the dart. I also want to have a look at how the side seams match up as the waistline curves seem to be in slightly different places (but that could be because of how much I had to shorten the pattern).

I just used bias binding on the armholes to create a clean finish – I am planning on doing a quick tutorial on idiot-proof bias binding (if I can do it, you will be able to!) so keep your eyes peeled! Seams were all finished on the overlocker which seemed to like this much better than the bee cotton. I also had a go with my edge-stitching foot on the yoke, but I must confess I wasn’t impressed. Mind you, it was just a cheapy one that you get in in those bargain sets from Amazon (which are incredibly useful for testing feet without forking out a small fortune for a better quality one), so maybe it was down to that.

I also had a bit of a struggle with the collar – it is just too big for the opening, but thanks to Heather from The Pug and Needle and Jamie from Male Devon Sewing for your help – next time I just need to take more time, swear a bit less at it and just ease it into the neckline. This time I cheated a bit – pinned it as it fit and chopped off the extra bit! I don’t ever do a top button up anyway so I didn’t need the extra length on the collar stand. I will make sure though that my next version is done properly!

The fabric sews up really nicely, feels lovely to wear – there was no printed selvedge though so I have no idea of the brand I’m afraid. Someone has told me in the past the print reminds them of bacon, but my sister’s comment at the weekend was that it looks like sweets, which is much less weird.

Next up is the Seamwork Adelaide and Hayden’s Negroni shirt – just need to buy buttons!

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