Akram's Ideas

Ice Cream Social Shirt

I’ve really wanted to sew a button down skirt after reading about Rochelle’s shirts on Lucky Lucille.

I’ve been leery of making a button shirt, because I felt they had to be precise and then there are all those buttons and buttonholes.

I felt like I didn’t have the skills to really pull off a button down shirt. Then I remembered my Sew For Victory dress is basically a button down shirt with an attached skirt.

Akram's Ideas: Sew for Victory Dress
Sew for Victory Dress 2014

I am absolutely in love with how my Sew For Victory dress came out. So, with that said, I was determined to make my first button down shirt.

I decided to use Simplicity pattern 2215, for two reasons. One using a modern pattern meant I didn’t have to grade a vintage one. Grading is something I feel I haven’t fully mastered yet.

Second it didn’t have sleeves. I find most store-bought button down shirts don’t fit me in the sleeves. In fact I even recently removed the sleeves from a secondhand Ralph Loren shirt, so it would fit properly. I blame my country girl arms.

So, with the pattern picked out I needed fabric. I went through my stash and found I had just enough of a sheer ice cream print fabric for a shirt.

 

Sheer ice cream print fabric in neon colors
Sheer ice cream print fabric in neon colors

Now this sheer fabric isn’t exactly the fabric one would choose for their first button down shirt. Obviously I had a lot of Colton fabrics in my stash I could have used.

However, I knew that our student organization would be hosting an ice cream social, in a few days. Thus, when I came across the ice cream fabric,I was like yes, I want to wear this for the ice cream social.

The constriction was very straightforward and I used my favorite method of sewing seams, French seams, which is the best method when working with sheer fabrics such as this one.

French seams with contrast neon green thred
French seams with contrast neon green thread

For the armhole and hem finishing I used Lucky Lucille’s Bias Tape technique.

The bias tape method worked perfectly. I even decided to add a bit of contrast by using neon green bias tape.

Used neon green bias tape on hem
Used neon green bias tape on hem

Speaking of contrast I finished the shirt using the left over pink buttons from my Sew For Victory dress.

Completed ice cream shirt
Completed ice cream shirt

The final results were amazing. This is the first button down shirt that I felt was made for me, oh, it was. Seriously it fit great.

It even looks great with the first button undone
It even looks great with the first button undone

Since the shirt was sheer I wore it with a white tank underneath it and paired it with my neon pink skirt. It was a fun colorful addition to the ice cream social.

Enjoying our ice cream social (photo by Rion Huffman)
Enjoying our ice cream social (photo by Rion Huffman)

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Akram Taghavi-Burris

designer, writer, educator, tech nerd, crafter, baker, sewer and vintage collector, who Brings Creative & Crazy Ides to Life.

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