Colette Patterns Negroni Shirt Pattern

Hello!

At the beginning of last month it was my dad’s birthday. As many of you will have experienced, men are ridiculously hard to buy for, so this year I decided to try and make something that would have real value, instead of trying to find a suitable gift in one of the many shops in Brighton.

I had absolutely no idea of what to make, or what I was capable of making. I had previously considered making a shirt but it just seemed too difficult. Then, whilst browsing one of my favourite blogs, I came across this review. This lady is so very talented, and she really inspired me to give the Colette Patterns Negroni shirt pattern a go. So, spurred on by her blog, I went to the ray-stitch site and bought the pattern and 2 meters of lovely pale blue organic cross weave cotton. I also copied her idea a little bit with putting a contrasting fabric on the back yolk. My dad is a massive fan of cycling, so I used a remnant of a liberty print fabric I bought a couple of months ago when I first had the idea of making a shirt. The print is adorable, and features lots and lots of teeny bicycles!

The pattern is remarkably easy to follow. The clear instructions and diagrams were very helpful and the whole thing only took a few hours to make, which is much less than I had first anticipated!

As I had never attempted to make a shirt before, the whole experience was new to me. I learnt new skills such as how to make a collar and sewing flat felled seams. It was also incredibly rewarding to see that even with no experience of making this type of garment, I still ended up with a product that looked quite professional – my dad remarked on receiving the gift that the only indication he had that it was hand made was that there wasn’t a tag in the back of it! What a compliment! I read through the instructions before I started making the shirt and thoroughly scared myself as it contained techniques I had never used before and some bits that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. However, once I started making, the instructions became a lot clearer! My advice to anyone making this shirt (or anything in fact) is to not get scared looking at the instructions. Once you have the relevant pieces of fabric in your hands, it will all suddenly become clear what is required of you.

I’ll leave you with some photos of the details of this shirt, which make me very happy indeed. I may even make another!

xo

 

The shirt hanging up

The collar and back yoke detail

The back yoke detail - beautiful Liberty print