You may recall that back in September, I traveled down to Brighton to meet James at a conference, and we both hit up the fabulous Ditto Fabrics store over his lunch break. I’ve been surprisingly good at sewing up most of the fabrics from that trip in the past four months (only the coating & lining remain, and that’s earmarked & muslined already), having made a cowl neck top from the digitally printed lycra and of course, a shirt for James from the lime linen.
During that same visit, James spotted a wonderful 50/50 poly/cotton flannel which was black on one side, and a soft, brushed charcoal grey on the reverse. It also still bore the tags from its original, designer previous life!
Jean Paul Gaultier Paris!
After the success of the lime linen shirt, James requested that I make the same pattern again using this two-sided flannel – most of the shirt should be in black, but with the cuffs, collar, and placket using the grey side.
I wanted to sew this as a Christmas gift for him, so once the Surf to Summit Top pattern release was out of the way, I got to work, finishing most of it before my evil holiday cold hit, but finishing the sleeve cuffs on the 24th when I could barely sit up!
I didn’t do as much topstitching with this version of the shirt, as I thought it should be a little more casual, but I did do the same lined yoke, taking care that the inner layer had the flannel side against the body so that it was super soft throughout the entire interior.
The back still features the same pleat beneath the yoke, and really, the only significant pattern change I made this time around was to create a separate sleeve cuff piece. I attached it with the seam allowances on the right side of the garment, so that when the cuff is folded upwards, the seam allowances are hidden inside instead of peeking out the bottom of the sleeve. I also changed the direction of the button tab so that it keeps the cuff in place.
I tried so hard to get all the details right here, but as soon as he put it on, he realised that I’d attached the neckline placket facing the wrong way! Oops. I’d been paying so close attention to making the placket neat that I forgot to check his other shirts to see which way they buttoned. Not a huge detail since he mostly slips it on over his head without adjusting the buttons, but annoying nonetheless.
Since the “pattern” was a traced garment and essentially free, this designer shirt actually only cost the £18 for the 1.5m of fabric! Even the Jean Paul Gaultier colognes cost more than that…