Hello internet friends!

Thanks to my phone’s “photo memories” feature I was reminded of these photos that I took a year ago of a plaid cheyenne tunic that I had made, taken photos of, but then never blogged. Given that it’s sweater weather which also means flannel weather I figured I would go ahead and post about it today, better late than never I think!

I love a simple, plaid, flannel dress shirt for work in the fall/winter. It’s easy to just throw on, looks good with jeans and whatever boots/shoes suit the weather situation, and boom you instantly have a seasonally appropriate outfit. For this rendition I used a medium-ish weight flannel that I picked up from blackbird when I went in to do a fitting course last year (I also snagged some in a green/black colour way that I really need to turn into a sister dress shirt!) and I went with a repeat pattern, the cheyenne tunic from Hey June Handmaids. You can spy my first two renditions of this pattern in my me made may posts.

For this version I decided to go with a full button band and full length sleeves. I also wanted to improve up on the fit of the shirt by implementing some of the techniques I learnt in the course and did a very small FBA of about 1/2”. With my previous cheyenne tunics I’ve found that while the fit in the shoulders is great the bust fit is not ideal, I get some tugging at the buttons when I move around which can lead to gaping. There has also been some pooling in the lower back that I was hoping the FBA would help alleviate. I made a quick muslin to check my alterations (which I forgot to photograph :( ), satisfied I then cut into my flannel.

As you can see from the pictures this small FBA fixed these issues! The bust now fits great and I can move about without creating button band gap (or even worse button undoing!). The fabric pooling at the lower back has also been fixed :D what I love about my ‘learning to sew’ journey is discovering these types of fixes, where the fit at a completely different area of the garment can dramatically alter a seemingly unrelated part and it’s only until you dig deeper into the construction and drape of a garment do you start to unravel these connections.

The one thing I got wrong with this shirt was the sleeve length. Having lived most of my life with sleeves that never fit because they are too long I don’t actually know where sleeves are supposed to hit on one’s wrist/hand. Looking at pictures of ready to wear dress shirts I figured I should want the sleeve to hit right at wrist when you have your arms down, which I was able to accomplish through measuring my arm length to my wrist and then measuring out the sleeve with the cuff. What I didn’t take into account was when I moved my arms…as you can see by the picture when my arms are straight the sleeves are way too short (literally the first time that’s happened in my life!) so for future versions I’ll be aiming for a sleeve length that hits just shy of the base of my thumb.

Hope you enjoyed this kind of throwback post! Happy sewing! :D