A Robert Kaufman Sewaholic Granville Shirt

We all knew this post was coming sooner or later after I professed my undying love for the Sewaholic Granville Shirt. Yep, I’ve made another one!

I wear the heck out of my Tencel Granville, so I immediately cut out another one after I finished my first. It took me forever to finish, though, because I had some other projects that actually had deadlines! Plus, I stopped right when it was time to attach the collar to the collar stand. I had issues with the collar and stand being too long before and was hoping, after making sure that I cut everything perfectly, that it would go seamlessly (no pun intended). However, it went just like it did before! I had to shorten the collar and stand by a whole seam allowance again. This really bothers me!

The collar ends up looking just fine after I make those adjustments, but it’s a little too tight to button up all the way. Good thing is I’m too cool (or not cool enough) to button my shirts all the way up.

I bought the fabric from CaliFabrics – it’s a Robert Kaufman shirting cotton. Isn’t it neat? As usual for a cotton, it sewed up very well and is comfortable to wear.

I harvested the buttons from a shirt I was going to throw out because the armpit stains were just too bad to donate. It’s a good feeling to be able to reuse something that was just going to go in a landfill anyway!

Aren’t they pretty?

I sewed a straight size 10 but made one adjustment to the pattern. I shortened the sleeves by 1 1/2 inches and it made a world of difference!

No more gorilla-length sleeves! My Tencel Granville has the insanely long sleeves as-drafted and I just turn the cuff up every time I wear it. I also sewed my first Granville with a 3/8 inch seam allowance for the sleeves because I was scared of the arms being too tight. I sewed them at the normal 5/8 inch seam allowance here and although the elbows wrinkle, it doesn’t feel too bad.

I still have a pretty good range of motion with the Granville! I hate women’s button-down shirts that are basically spray-painted on which makes it really hard to move around. My job requires some moving and light to moderate lifting in between hunching over a computer all day, so I like how this shirt can move along with me. I mean, that’s what we as humans are made to do, right?

OK, let’s take a look at the insides now!

Not too much different from the right side, eh?

Maybe that’s because I used flat-felled seams for the first time in my sewing life! They’re easy but they do require more time at the ironing board. I used this tutorial from Colette Patterns if you want to go check it out. I think it’s worth it to have something that looks just as pretty on the inside as the outside. Plus, it makes the seams crazy strong!

I tried doing flat-felled seams on every seam, but I was scratching my head when it came to the sleeves… so I ended up just serging them instead.

I later found out that it is possible to do flat-felled seams on shoulders when I was making a muslin of the Colette Negroni Shirt for DD! They include it as part of the instructions, so I’ll let you know how it goes when I start/finish it!

I have plans for so many more Granvilles since I am actively trying to replace all of the RTW collared, button-down shirts in my closet. I harvested buttons from 3 over the weekend, so that’s more space in my closet to fill again! I wore the heck out of those poor shirts and they looked pretty rough after years of sweating and working in them. I can’t help the pit stains, work makes me stress-sweat!

Now it’s time to go celebrate another successful work shirt!

‘Til next time!

-RED

P.S. Don’t you LOVE my new silver shoes? They make me feel like a space-age rockstar! I bought them on sale at my local DSW during a retail therapy session. ❤