Getting Started on Michael's Cotton Eyelet Shirt

I could delay no longer: today I started sewing Michael's cotton eyelet shirt.

As I mentioned yesterday, Michael's choice was the Colette Negroni pattern, which I used for my shirt sew-along two years ago.  I had redrafted it a bit, shortening the sleeves, narrowing the facings, and adding a sloping shoulder adjustment.  Fortunately everything was clearly labeled.



I've never worked with cotton eyelet before and while I was afraid how the stitching would work with all those holes, I needn't have worried -- it's been easy to handle.

I split the back yoke and cut it on the bias.  I think this is a much better choice than simply cutting along the straight grain the way the rest of the back is cut.  It adds visual interest.



I eliminated the two small pleats in back and instead eased the back into the yoke.  The fabric is too thick to have pleats, in my opinion, and I was never fond of the way the narrow pleats looked on my earlier versions of this shirt.



Previously, I'd serged the edges of the front facings.  Today I think it looks cheap.



By sheer coincidence, I happened to have matching salmon-pink commercial bias tape, so I finished the facings with that (after preshrinking the tape first).







I toyed with the idea of using a thinner fabric for the facings, but given all the little holes, the color would have had to match perfectly.  Instead, I cut the facings identical to my front pieces and tried to have all the little holes line up.  As it turns out, this really isn't necessary, what's important is that the color match.


 
I had one mishap: when I was trimming the collar seam allowances....



...I must have sliced through my inside yoke.  You can imagine my reaction when I discovered this:



I repaired the hole by satin stitching over the damaged area.  Luckily it was the inside yoke and not the outside yoke.



I think I'm done for the day.  This is going to be a long-sleeve shirt, so tomorrow I hope to make sleeve plackets, attach the sleeves, and ideally finish the shirt.  We'll see.

Readers, that's all for today.

Have you ever sewn anything made out of cotton eyelet?  How did it turn out?

Have a great day, everybody!