Go Shamrock

I recently bought a piece of remnant fabric from an eBay auction and won it at 99p plus £2.80 postage. When it arrived I was delighted that it was just as I had hoped with a slight widthwise stretch, fabulous green colour and unusual, bold design. A bargain!!

My Great Grandfather was Irish and this Green colour makes me think of Ireland which is why I've called the blog Go Shamrock.

When deciding on what to make, I felt the placement of the pieces would be crucial as I didn't want the large navy square to end up over my boob. I opted for the 'Go Anywhere Shirt' design as shown on curious.com by Glenda Sparling of Sure-fit Designs. With careful placing of the pattern, I managed to fit all the pieces on the small amount of fabric I had and that they were all lying correctly across the stretch direction.

The open collar design makes it look like a notched collar but it was really neat and so easy following Glenda's instructions.

I modified the sleeves as I'm not a fan of 3/4 length so made my normal shirt with placket and cuff and I think this was a good decision given the lovely design of the fabric.

Although the way the fabric was placed makes this look very asymmetrical I have unified the collar and cuffs to match with the horizontal lines, this feeds the Virgo in me...

The close up photo of the collar and notched collar effect shows this feature well.

Although the sleeves have different pattern placements the cuffs and plackets are identical.

I chose some plain snow white buttons to bring out the pure white in the fabric design more because I had them in my stash and no other colours matched as well but I think they work.

Overall this is an eye catching top that would be easy to wear on most occasions [no wonder Glenda called it the 'Go Anywhere Shirt'] and costing me under £4.00 instead of in excess of £80.00+ from an exclusive boutique besides the pleasure of making it cannot be topped.

Looking at the photos below of me wearing it, I think I could have made it a bit more fitted but I didn't want it super tight as this will be a summer casual shirt.

I am certainly packing it in the Motorhome for our trip through France and Spain next month on our way to Portugal for our planned tour. We hope to see more of the Northern West Coast that neither of us have been to before. This shirt will travel well as it doesn't crease easily.

I shall be giving my sewing machine a well deserved rest while we're in Europe but as I hope to be inspired and maybe even bring back some fabric [there is plenty of storage space in the garage part of our motorhome - Yippee!] I'll be back blogging and sewing again in May.