his girl friday shirt

I'm calling this the His Girl Friday shirt because I can just see Rosalind Russell in it, clickety-clacketing furiously over her typewriter then dashing off, pencil behind the ear, to cover a breaking story. In heels, pencil skirt, and fantastic hat, of course.

This is Simplicity's Built by Wendy pattern 4112. I love that all of Wendy's patterns are such a great combination of modern and classic—and this one has such fantastic details to make it interesting. I will say that this one was not easy peasy. More like difficult pifficult. It looked easy when I was picking out the pattern, it looked easy when I was cutting out the fabric, and then it dissolved into very confusing, very quickly. Give me a few more days to recover, and I may be of the opinion that it was worth all that effort.



Part of my problem was that I was working with a fabric that looks the same on both sides—and the seemingly simple instructions "right sides together" caused me more confusion than you would ever think possible. The neck band had to be ripped out not once but twice. The sleeve plackets were backwards and had to be resewn. I will say very proudly that I did get both cuffs on without a bit of trouble and they both happily face the right direction, unlike last time. And I will repeat my love for cuffs. Love them. So much fun.

The sleeves. Check out these sleeves. Wendy suggests striped fabric for this shirt to make the most of the interesting cut of the sleeves, and she's absolutely right. They come in two pieces and are gathered in three places, so you work for it, but they are pretty darn cool.

I think I cut out about a size too big, and ended up taking in the side seams considerably. As a result the sleeves are even poofier than Wendy had intended. But I guess if you're going to go poofy, why be shy about it? The body of the shirt has no shaping at all, so it is very comfortable. It might be less flattering on curvier women, but the slightly masculine cut is a great foil for the girly sleeves and neckline.

After all the effort of sewing the shirt, I couldn't bring myself to bother with putting on buttons and buttonholes. So snaps. Twin and I debated about whether the pearl snaps pushed the shirt over the line from charmingly old-fashioned to doofy and grandmother-ish. But we decided that doofy is the new cool so we went with the pearls. And I have to say that taking a hammer to the darn thing was incredibly satisfying.



Walter Burns: There's been a lamp burning in the window for ya, honey... here.
Hildy Johnson: Oh, I jumped out that window a long time ago.