A red flannel negroni for my husband

  I finished another shirt for my husband. Yippee!

And it fits!

I love this cotton flannel fabric. It’s thick , warm, and not too fuzzy. I have no idea who the designer is. I bought is at Fabric Town, my lovely, old fashioned neighborhood fabric store with a 1960’s sign out front.

I used the Colette Negroni pattern. My first version of this shirt was made in chambray.I should have cut the yoke on the bias….

It was an absolutely perfect January California day. Days like this are golden. There was a super low tide and we took the girls to the tide pools after Sunday Mass. These photos were taken at Rincon beach, a popular surf spot at Carpinteria, near Santa Barbara. .

Someone wore a bathing suit under her church dress and tore it off as soon as we went on our walk. It wasn’t exactly warm, but kids could care less.Richard likes his flannel shirt and I think it looks great on him! Then again, I think most everything looks great on him.Unfortunately, it was a little harder to make than I remembered, and I didn’t have it ready in time for Christmas

He doesn’t like having a  facing instead of a button placket. There are definitely some problems in the design of this pattern. I don’t like the look of the collar with no stand, and the sleeve was drafted incorrectly. I measured all of his sleeves on his ready to wear shirts, and they were approximately 22 inches long finished. The sleeve itself on the pattern was 23 inches long, and that didn’t include the 3 inch wide finished cuff. I’m thinking this sleeve was drafted without deducting the amount needed from it that needed to be, since there was a cuff. A 26 inch sleeve is waaay too long for an average size sleeve. You’d have to be really out of proportion for that to fit since it’s drafted for average height! Also, a facing instead of a placket or separate button band  is a little odd for a shirt. But it gives the shirt a sort of shirt jacket feel, which doesn’t bug me, But Richard thinks it ‘s all wrong and flops around awkwardly even though it’s stitched down on the top and bottom. He’s pretty picky about details, though. But he has to wear it, not me.

That being said, I do think this a good pattern for a person just starting out sewing shirts, because of it’s simplicity. Just remember to measure the sleeves, and most likely shorten them.

I’m not sure what happened with the collar. It’s either too short or I sewed it on lopsided. I lost the instructions early on in sewing the shirt and forgot to mark the placement notches. I also lost the placket pattern piece and it took a little while to get it right. I first made a one piece placket but then couldn’t figure out how to sew it on. Then I  made a two piece one like the pattern. I think I spent about three hours trying to figure this out. Gah!!!