I have wanted to do this for quite a while. I first made my husband a dress shirt in the mid 70's. Our mom's would send him material for his birthday and I would make them into dress shirts. I haven't made him any for quite a while. They turned out pretty good, but I know I can do better now that I have more experience and more time to do it just right, including the fit AND the details. I have gathered several patterns and sets of instructions on fit and details, and hopefully will get it all together with the best of each aspect of shirt construction.
The material is from the fabric store downtown, hubby picked them out himself. They are rather lavender/pinkish and have a nice subtle texture to them. They feel wonderful and I am washing them right now. Once they are washed and dried I will iron on some light weight fusible interfacing and wash and dry them again to see how they react. Sometimes the fusible shrinks just a bit and there is puckering, which makes me crazy after the hours spent making the shirt, so am trying to avoid that in the future. The Pellon says it does not need preshrinking, but it doesn't always actually act that way. These two pieces were interfaced, then washed and dried. The light weight (on the left) turned out OK, but the heavy weight (on right) did shrink and pucker, even ironing did not get it out.
I made the entire pattern, which is custom measured for my husband, out of muslin. I did the interfacing patterns as well because it is annoying to have to cut them out and trim them accurately each time, so I cut them out from the muslin and carefully trimmed them so that I have it just right. I can set on the interfacing and cut away, no trimming. The other aspect of having a muslin pattern is it is so easy to lay out and cut, no pinning, because the pattern doesn't shift the way the tissue patterns do. Plus it is more accurate from what I find.
I am also going to try something I have never tried before. Putting small pockets in the collar for stays. Many of his purchased shirts have them and he likes that aspect. I also have two versions of making the placket for the cuff slit, I will practice two versions and see which I think is the best. Time and effort are not the issue, it will strictly be based on LOOK!
So we'll see how it all turns out. I have been working on a cowboy shirt for my grandson, and although I still need to put the buttons on, it's pretty cute, I think he'll like it. I will take it to him in May along with his pirate costume.
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