A Summertime Granville

My springtime Granville shirt has become a real wardrobe staple these past few weeks - it's such a classic style and I really like the fitted, yet comfortable shape. Key word here - comfortable! Everybody knows I'm a giant fan of a super-fitted, collared shirt (if you need proof, see my five versions of Simplicity 4238), but I have to admit, the trillions of darts around the waist do feel a bit restrictive as the day moves on and more and more cakes are consumed. The advantage of the Granville pattern is that there are no waist darts (as opposed to eight in Simplicity 4238!) but you can still achieve a lovely fitted silhouette thanks to the shaped side seams and princess seams on the back bodice. So I decided to make a lightweight, sleeveless version of the Granville shirt to wear during hot, summer days.

The fabric I used was a white Swiss Dot Cotton from Fabric Godmother, which Josie kindly sent me to review. I deliberately chose a very lightweight fabric as I wanted this version to be suitable for hot weather. The fabric is beautifully light, but the flip side is that it's also totally transparent. I'm not a camisole wearer and don't like having a visible bra on display so I knew I'd have to underline the whole shirt. Initially I planned to underline it with silk cotton, but the white silk cotton in my stash is just slightly off white. The Swiss Dot fabric is a bright, brilliant white, so I underlined it with a layer of light cotton muslin which was exactly the same shade. 

The bottom yoke piece is underlined, the top one isn't

You can see from the photo above what a difference there is between a regular pattern piece and one that's been underlined. This solves the transparency issue and because both fabrics are so light, the garment still feels very drapey and breathable.

My scissors struggled a tiny bit cutting through some of the raised 'dots', so make sure yours are nice and sharp if you're working with this fabric. I could also feel the needle going over the dots as I was sewing, but the stitches didn't distort which I was pleased about. I used Entomology Pins throughout, which are great when working with fine fabrics. They are quite long and sharp though, so be careful you don't prick your finger and drip blood! I'm only saying this because as I was completing the final few stitches on this shirt and congratulating myself on avoiding a pricked finger mishap, I realised to my horror that I was having a nosebleed. A nosebleed!! The last time I had a nosebleed was about forty years ago for goodness sake! By an absolute miracle, I managed to avoid dripping blood all over the shirt but I'm not quite sure how. I know it's only a matter of time before I spill a whole plate of tomato sauce right down my front - just you wait!

Back to the sewing - if you're planning a sleeveless Granville yourself, you'll need to make some slight modifications to the armhole and yoke pieces to convert the original pattern to a sleeveless version. This was very simple to do and I used this excellent tutorial from Grainline Studio, which Tasia recommended when she made her own sleeveless version. Sewing this shirt was pretty straight forward and I took my time sewing it which was a good thing - sewing shirts shouldn't be rushed! The step that really flummoxed me last time was sewing the collar, so this time round I tried a different approach and followed Andrea's collar tutorial at Four Square Walls. She constructs the collar in a different order to the instructions, and for me personally, it made a lot more sense and gave a neater, more professional look to the collar. Thanks Andrea!

As the fabric is so lightweight, I spent a bit of time making sure the finish of this shirt was really neat. The side seams and princess seams are French seamed and the armholes are finished with vintage white bias binding - no raw seams on display! I even slip stitched the armhole binding to the underlining so there was no show through on the right side of the shirt. Yep, you read that correctly, hand stitching, through choice! I think the heat was getting to me by this point!

Inside view

Easy to tuck in - yay!

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed that this version of the sleeveless 1950's shirt is also white, so why did I need another? For a start, the two fabrics couldn't be more different - I used a thickish cotton pique for the Simplicity version, which is as stiff as a board. It's a nightmare to launder and get creases out off and is really bulky to tuck in - I noticed this especially during OWOP last September when I was trying to pair it with different garments. I did note then that I needed another white sleeveless shirt in a different fabric, well here it is! I love it - and it's turned out exactly as I hoped.  Happy Wednesday! x

Fabric was given to me free of charge for review. All views my own.