Purple Polka Dot Wiksten Shirt

 

Photo by Marshall Pascual

 

Welcome to this week’s installment of Rachel Tries to Teach Herself Garment Sewing. For this shirt, I started with the ever popular Wiksten tank and added sleeves to it. My pattern library isn’t very large, so I used the sleeve pattern from Laurel by Colette Patterns and shortened it by 4”.

 

Photo by Marshall Pascual

 

 

While this shirt turned out much better than my first attempt at sleeves, there was still some unexpected (and unwelcome) tightness around the armholes. Too late, I realized that I sewed the sleeves on with a 5/8” seam allowance, when the original Wiksten pattern has a 3/8” facing. I should have added 1/4” to the armholes’ seam allowances. So the shirt ended up 1/2” too narrow and does funny things when I move my arms. Oops.

 

Photo by Marshall Pascual

Luckily, this fabric was one that I picked up for next to nothing in La Conner. (Fabric is Ella by Kathy Brown of The Teacher’s Pet for Red Rooster Fabrics.) In the fall, I’ll throw a cardigan on over this and be good to go. For now, I am plotting my next move in the never-ending battle of wits against garment sewing.