Never Enough White Shirts

Pretty in White

One can never have enough white shirts or blouses in my opinion. I tend to gravitate to them in the stores and like the fact they go with any color or variety of bottom. My problem is that I either wear them and launder them so much they begin to yellow, or - this is painful - I simply grow out of them. I have three very pretty white shirts that I love with interesting details that I can no longer wear because they no longer fit. 

 

So, while I continue my quest to perfect my fitting skills, a simple white shirt that I can wear to my hearts content seemed a practical choice for a sewing project. This time I chose a Palmer Pletsch pattern with a detailed guide to pattern fitting. Though a rather conservative style it is one I could easily modify.

Getting princess lines to fit properly has been an issue for me lately. My bust apex is lower than most of the patterns I have used and I've had difficulty adjusting them properly. I also seem to have a hollow area right above my bust that causes a bubble right above the bustline and at the armscye. So, for these reasons this pattern seemed a wise choice. 

After carefully reading through the pattern fitting directions, which call for elaborate taping at the seam lines, slashing and pivoting, etc., it still would only produce half a pattern to fit. Instead I chose to bypass all that and make a muslin. I transferred all the slashing markings onto it so I could use the pattern fit recommendations. The resulting shirt fits well given my figure issues and I was able to adjust the princess lines to fall where I wanted them. 

I like, but not love this pattern. Now that it fits, however I see lots of other possibilities.   A longer length and changing the sleeves from 2 pieces to one.