[rs232]

This is a quick photo essay of how I generally go about making up a shirt. Its purpose is to hopefully make shirtmaking more accesssible and thereby increase begineer participation. It's not comprehensive, and at a minimum, anyone trying to make a shirt should buy David Page Coffin's Shirtmaking book for more complete instructions, alternative methods, and pattern templates for collars and plackets, etc. There are also professional shirt and collar maker members, and I'm sure they'll chime in with better ways of doing a lot of what I do and I will learn lots!

Here we go.

[rs232]

First, wipe down excess oil and calibrate tensions so that stitching is neat on both sides. Neat stitching is imperative for a decent shirt. I'm doing this on a zig-zag machine; don't do this if you have a choice. It doesn't feed nearly as nicely as a plain sewing machine.



If you use stiff fusible interfacing (which I do), fuse now. Seam allowances are all 1cm in my shirts, except for the shoulder seam.



If using reversible shirting, fold the front placket around, glue baste, and top stitch down both sides. A note on glue basting: My use of glue is purely utilitarian, and I use glue pretty liberally because it gives me a crisp look, saves time, and washes out after the first wash. Iron glued seam dry before sewing! My front plackets are 3.5cm wide.



Fold the front right placket on itself twice, and edgestitch.

This post has been edited by rs232: 26 December 2011 - 03:44 PM

[rs232]

Do the buttonholes on the left placket (the front one, so it will be the right placket for a womens' shirt). Buttonholes are 5cm from the neck, then 10cm spacing thereafter. Buttons to go on now too, if you like (mark button positions with pins/wax pencil based on buttonhole positions). Left and right plackets now done.


Glue baste the yoke to the back.



Stitch, press open.

This post has been edited by rs232: 26 December 2011 - 03:44 PM

[rs232]

Glue baste inside yoke piece to the seam allowance, then turn the back to the outside, and edgestitch along the outisde yoke piece. This secures the inside yoke piece at the bottom. If using a fairly transparent bold pattern, use a white inside yoke piece to stop the pattern showing through to the outside and clashing.


Sew the fronts to the yoke. Note the curved seam. I curve both, because of the superior fit. This does mean parallel stripes along the front edge of the yoke are impossible, but I value fit above pattern matching.



Fold and iron the seam allowance at the front edge of the inside yoke piece, and glue baste to the seam allowance of the yoke/fronts. Pay attention to match the baste edge to the stitching line exactly. Iron glue dry, then turn and edgestitch the front edge of the outside yoke piece, catching the glue-basted inside yoke piece.




It with a little care, the edgestitching should look equally good on both sides.

[rs232]

Sew the placket to the sleeve in a rectangle, and then cut it out, snipping down the edges and then to the corners in the normal manner for turning.


Turn, and the placket into shape. Pictured above is the minor part basted, the seam allowances glued together. Edgestitch.


Same goes for the major part - fold the seam allowances in, glue baste down...


...and then edge stitch.

[rs232]

In an industrial setting, I believe that they attach the sleeve in one pass with a machine that folds and fells at once, but sharp corners are limiting, so the armholes tend to be deeper and the sleeve caps more shallow.

If anyone has a faster way of doing this neatly, I'd really like to hear about it!


Fold the seam allowance on the sleeve cap out to the right side. Glue & iron. I use a 5-6mm seam allowance here.



Attach sleeve to body. I sew from the centre out to the edges to avoid having to baste. If you want to sew in one pass, you should probably baste here (with thread) because you may find that the foot stretches the sleeve adn the pieces are different lengths by the time you want to finish the seam.


Press.


Edgestitch the sleeve to the body. Check your tension before you do this; the underside of the picture will be on the outside of the armhole and will be highly visible.


Press again.

This post has been edited by rs232: 26 December 2011 - 04:11 PM

[rs232]

Like the armhole, I generally flat-fell with a compensating foot and then an edgestitching foot. I haven't found that I do a sufficient volume of the two arm/body side seams to warrant buying/making a specific foot.



For the arm/body side seams, fold the seam allowance of the front side of the seam over the back side by 5-6mm, and glue.


Stitch with a compensating foot. I use a 4mm one, because I like narrow flat-felled seams. Press, flip the seam allowance to the other side, and edgestitch. (I forgot to take a photograph of this).

[rs232]

This shirt will have a detachable collar. For an attached collar, the operations are the pretty much the same, but the order is slightly different.


Stitch the collar stand along the top and sides, following the line of the interfacing.


Then attach the stand to the body.


Turn, glue base the bottom seam allowance towards the inside of the stand, and edgestitch.


For a detachable collar, I put a small (16L) thin button at the centre back of the stand to stop the collar riding up. I prefer buttons to collar studs.


And while I'm doing buttons, I happened to do the front buttons here too. I use thin MOP buttons - thick ones are nice, but I generally prefer the slimmer ones.


While I'm in the mood to finish the body, I roll the bottom hem.

This post has been edited by rs232: 26 December 2011 - 04:23 PM

[rs232]

Attach the fused piece of the cuffs. These are French cuffs. Barrel cuffs will be attached the other way around. (I wish I hadn't made them so big, in hindsight. This was an experiment.) Note to turn the minor part of the placket inside for French cuffs.


Attach the non-fused piece of the cuffs all around the outside edges. Note that it is kept under tension while feeding so as to be smaller than the fused piece to give a nice curve to the cuffs and minimise excess cloth on the cuff underside.


Serrate edges if you like. Clip close to corners.


Turn, and glue-baste the cuff underside top edge towards the inside.


Edgestitch this down, and then topstitch around the cuff, catching all seam allowances.

Put buttonholes in the cuffs, and the shirt body is now all finished.

This post has been edited by rs232: 26 December 2011 - 04:31 PM

[rs232]

Now create the collar. The underside holds the collar stays.


Construct by folding the undreside and stitching a scrap behind.


Stitch the underside to the topside of the collar. Note again that the underside is a lot smaller than the topside due to tension while feeding. RTW shirts have doubly-fused collars (the second piece of fusing ends at the break line of the collar), but I have only fused this collar once so it will be a little softer. I've also sneakily put a little extra width at the centre back to ensure that the tie and stand are covered, so the collar is not a perfectly straight line there.


Turn, and topstitch. Also note the strong pointedness where it attaches to the stand. This is necessary for a good amount of roll over the tie knot, letting it have space. This, combined with a high stand, allows the tie to stand proud from the neck and chest. It also stops the tie being pushed down so that collar stand is visible above the knot.

This post has been edited by rs232: 26 December 2011 - 04:38 PM

[rs232]

Stitch Glue baste the stand to the collar, and stitch. Then stitch the underside of the stand as above.


Turn, and fold the seam allowance at the top of the underside of the collar to the inside. Glue baste, and edgestitch.


Note again, keep the inside piece tensioned while feeding through the machine to get a good natural curve to the collar.

[rs232]

Put buttonholes in the collar, and then it's done. Immediately post to the apprentice forum for comment!




That's not a great photograph of the back anyway. It could hang cleaner with the addition of darts, but I don't like the look, nor the reduced mobility when bending forwards with the shirt tucked in.

This post has been edited by rs232: 26 December 2011 - 04:54 PM

[Torry Kratch]

The hole in the needle plate is very large (designed by a zig-zag), so the seam is obtained tightened.
And why are you not using hand sewing, in combination with machine?

[rs232]

^That's right, I don't have a plainsewing machine. I don't have room, and need zigzag functionality. I deliberately try to minimise handsewing on my dress shirts - I want them to look crisp and even.

[Terri]

You could look into getting a second throat plate for your machine that has the single needle hole.

[amateursarto]

Nice tutorial and shirt, rs232. did you notice that the point of your collar on the left side appears to sit higher on your neck as opposed to the right?

my method of making up is similar, though the sequence is different. i may have to try yours, since I wait until the end of the shirt to make buttonholes and affix buttons. it makes sense to do it right away though. as far as collar making goes, i have switched to making them the way that mike maldonado teaches in his tutorial videos. with his method, he sews the ends of the collar from end to end through the seam allowances a few stitches and after that he sews the seam that sits against the neck. this ensures sharp points as you cross each end of the collar with neck edge rather than pivoting at each point. that combined with good trimming of the seam allowances, helps in making sharp points on the collar. sometimes if the seam allowance is an exact 1/4" it's possible to turn the points without trimming the seam allowances.

this thread will be good, especially as others join in with their shirt making methods and tips.

thanks rs...

[Dirk]

Very nice tutorial, I learned a few things that will really help.

[R.m.Bakker]

Nice tutorial RS, seems that every shirtmaker has his or her own way of constructing everything. I found your curved shoulder seam to be one of the more interesting points, it actually makes a lot of sense but I never thought of applying it in a shirt.I might actually try that out!

In sharp contrast, my shirts are much, much more a hand-sewn product, so I think by default the construction methods will be different. When I get some time off, hopefully next weekend if I'm lucky, I'll put together a thread in the same way, a tutorial how to make a shirt but then how to do it almost completely by hand, and with sewn-in interfacing rather then fusing.

Thanks again, and we need more threads like these on the forum in general, since I think we can learn so much from each other's construction methods !