A tale of two shirts

 There's not much to talk about today.  We got word last week that they're starting the work on the house today, so we spent the week getting ready.  Before any major construction, there is some destruction and moving our stuff out of the way.  We're a little late because the window company was ransomware hacked and our windows were delayed, but they're supposed to be in now, and they're going to start removing the old siding today.  Rob has taken advantage of that by cutting the house open and doing some electrical work and we had a plumber in to replace our outside hose bibs.  This weekend, we cleared space in front of all the windows, which meant taking the studio apart because I had two sewing machines in front of the window in there.  I sat in my chair and studied the room while everything was pushed to the side and it's not going back together the same way it was.  I can make improvements on that.  

Rob got to wear his shirt last week.  He only worked a half day that day, but he said he got lots of compliments.  

Handsome devil.  And, a trained electrician, too.  How'd I get so lucky?

I thought I'd talk a bit about the changes I made in my shirt pattern for this latest shirt.  This is the shirt I made with this pattern last.  They've both been through the laundry, so this is their natural state, which is how they'll get worn unless I take the time to iron them...NOT!

I've always felt like this shirt just hangs off me.  The only things I like are the collar, which hangs very well and the length; a camp shirt should cover the top of my shorts, but not hang into my lap.  But, there are more things that are wrong with it.  There's the obvious button misplacement of the last button.  the shoulders hang almost three inches off my actual shoulder on both sides.  it's too bulky around the middle and that makes it bunch up when I sit down.  There's no "body" to the front of the shirt because the interfacing is too light weight.

I tried this shirt on before I cut my new shirt to see how the pattern fit and decided to change as many of those things as possible.  First, I cut 1.5 inches out of the top of both shoulders to bring the shoulder seams up...I could have done another half inch at least.  I re-drew the sleeve caps to add 1.5 inches to the top to account for the shoulder adjustment and made the sleeve a half inch shorter.  I I took a two inches out of the sides by trimming down the sleeves, the front and the back along the underarm and side seams to decrease the circumference of the shirt.  And, I used a heavier interfacing.  

Much better.  Dot, I did just need to take the buttonhole stitching out of both shirts a couple weeks ago.  I had not cut the buttonholes yet.  I've made that mistake before and had to remove the front placket from an almost finished shirt.  I'm more careful now.  

Saturday night, we took Sydney and her new boyfriend to a neighborhood jazz concert.  Their first intro to jazz. The singer was pretty good, and I kept watching and wondering what they must have been thinking about the soft backgrounds and samba beats.  

Remember Lane, selfies are taken from above, never, never, never from below.  

We've had so much rain recently, breaking our hot and dry spell.  The garden is finally starting to recover and look like it's old familiar self.  I'd likely have spent a good bit of time digging out there if we hadn't been so busy clearing things around the house.  This plumbago is going wild and I'm loving it!

Sydney got a really good evaluation at work and a nice raise.  It's good to see her doing good.  

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Lane