What's Wrong With This Shirt? + When Other People Look Better In Your Clothes Than You Do

The vintage flea market cotton print shirt is done!

And it has a problem.  Can you tell what it is?



In case you can't or are too polite to say: the front button placket is roughly 1/2" too far to my right.

You may recall that I adapted V8889, which has a covered front button placket formed by folding multiple layers roughly as wide as the placket itself to form four layers of fabric: two for the placket and two for the top layer.







However, the pattern I worked from was Butterick 4712.  This has a placket that is formed by folding a facing under, then folding again and stitching a 1/4" tuck.  When opened flat, the front now has a placket with raw edges cut caught in the tuck.  Does that make sense?





But what that tuck does is shift the center front 1/2" to the left.  I didn't account for that shift when I added the additional facings from V8889.  As a result, the covered placket is too far to the right.  (This also means the collar/collar stand relationships are slightly off, though it's hard to see and easy to fudge.)







With Vogue 8889, since you're just folding over multiple times, there's no tuck and hence no shift.

The covered placket on the Vogue hits dead center -- especially obvious on fabric like this semi-sheer white cotton. 



I should have noticed this issue sooner but I didn't.  The problem was evident in photos of my work-in-progress but I missed it.  Argh.  

UPDATE: It has occurred to me that I should have just added the extending facings from V889 (that fold up to form the covered button placket) to the right front piece (turned upside down so that it becomes the left side piece, if that makes sense).



Here's the good -- well, better -- news.  Michael loves the shirt as-is and it looks great on him -- I don't know why since gray isn't one of his colors (he's an Autumn).  I guess it's his hair.

He thinks the off-centered thing looks intentional and finds the shirt vaguely kimono-like.

No gray in Michael's color chart!

So Michael gets the shirt and all is well.

I really do like the shirt. I love the print and the cotton is soft as silk.  But I don't think I could ever wear it without obsessing over that off-center button placket.  Forgive me.

Friends, in closing, two questions:

1) Could you have worn this off-center-placketed shirt in peace, knowing it was a mistake, or would you forever be pointing out its flaw whenever people complimented you on the shirt, provided they sometimes did?

2) How do you feel when other people -- perhaps family members, perhaps friends -- look noticeably better than you do in the clothes your sewn for yourself?  Does it frustrate you or, as in this case, does it actually come in handy when something you've sewn doesn't turn on quite right?

Have a great day everybody!