New Look 6728

I picked this pattern up during my pattern binge and I have to say that this was a GREAT purchase. I have a newfound respect for New Look patterns. This shirt pattern might serve as the basis for many, many shirt patterns to come. I was really able to adjust the pattern to my needs very easily and I enjoyed going so.

Here is my process:

My back waist length is a ridiculous 14". This is 2.5" shorter than most standard back waist lengths for my size (14-16). However, due to my bust size, this front waist length is usually only about 1" shorter that the pattern. So I've been experimenting with adjusting patterns unevenly. You can see here how the excess is taken out of the pattern.



When I make this kind of adjustment, I have to do more than just blend the waistlines back together. I also have to readjust the grainlines. I did this by drawing a line that matched up the grainline arrows on the traced pattern. This splits the difference between the two lines. My hope was that this would provide a reasonable new grain. This seems to have worked well.

I made a muslin from this pattern that came out looking list this:



I was pretty happy with this as a starting point, but notice the gaping at the armhole and the high hemline around the butt. The back waist was now sitting over my natural waistline, but I wanted the back hem to hang even with the front, so I simply added back 1" and the back and tapered it out through the side front, trying to match the proportional amount of the waist tuck in the pattern:


to compensate for the gaping armhole, I "rotated" a dart that was forming at the armseye into the princess seam line and the extended the shoulder length out 5/8" so that the front shoulder would match the back shoulder. This seemed to solve the problem.


I then went ahead and made th top in a blue handkerchief weight linen that I had left over from making the godet skirt. I used red thread for a design choice because the best buttons I had in my stash were the red ones. The pattern only calls for 5 buttons, but I used all 10. This makes the shirt very secure across the bust. I can reach and move without is gaping open, which is great for teaching. I made button thread button loops because I had trouble making fabric loops with the linen. It was just too thick.

The linen was also much more "wiggly" than the muslin fabric, so my tucks are not exactly symmetrical. This is kind of disappointing, but I don't think it's too distracting. The pattern piece for the front tucks is preparing first and then cut out, so in the future I might try different tuck arrangements when I figure out how to sew pintucks with my machine. All in all, this pattern in a keeper.