McCalls 8409 Mens Shirt

Well, we have a shirt!  I'm kind of impressed that I made a shirt too (thankyou ladies) - I made a blouse at school (about 35 years ago) but this is my first shirt!  And it fits ............. it may not be a tailored fit but my husband likes it and I'm rather pleased with it too .............

It fits number 2 son as well but, despite promising to only show the shirt, I wasn't allowed to take a pic!

 I used McCalls pattern 8409 ............... it comes up really big, I mean REALLY big so had to go down a size. The only thing I changed was to straighten the hem (by request so the shirt would be more suitable for wearing "out" when wanted). There were a couple of glitches along the way so, more to remind myself than anything else ...........

Not wanting to cut the actual pattern to the smaller size I laid some of this garden fleece over and cut it out in this BUT I didn't mark it so mistakenly used one of the front pieces to cut the back on the fold in fabric ........... luckily it was the front pattern piece I'd used so was able to reuse the fabric for the (smaller) back.  Matching the sleeves to the bodice was a little tricky and, despite my very best efforts, still had about an inch overlap on the seam - ideally I would have liked to French seam the armholes like I did the side seams but couldn't work out how best to do it so they are zigzag finished.  The buttonholes as marked on the pattern are a teeny bit large for shirt buttons so will try and remember that for next time.  

Now I can breathe for a bit!!!!!!!!!!!
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