Birthday gift and more sewing catchup

It seems the more I sew, the less I blog which is a bad situation to be in. Anyway here is my latest make but first, I'd like to share a recent birthday gift I received from a very dear friend and one of my biggest fans of my sewing and blogging. This was a big birthday for me and such a brilliant present that fits perfectly in my sewing room.

The photo doesn't do it justice but the frame totally matches my curtains. The background of the picture is made of tiny thread reels and apart from the machine having my name on it you can see the thread on the machine loops up to a heart before threading its way down to the needle. I just totally love it. This was just such a thoughtful gift and so appreciated.

Now on to my latest shirt....

I described this as a 'noisy' shirt to a friend who enquired because it's not exactly 'loud' but it isn't quiet either. The fabric reminds of those paper crafts where you dip it in liquid having spotted it with oils for some pretty amazing designs.

I can't remember where I got this fabric now but it's a quality 100% cotton and would have been too overwhelming in one colour so I used some accent plain fabric for the cuffs, shoulder tabs and inside of the yoke and collar. The collar came out a bit 'Elvis Presley ish' and wasn't intended but I know where I went wrong. I drafted the pattern from my SFD basic body blueprint where I then added my usual 1 cm seam allowance but instead of drafting a new collar and stand, I took the pattern from one of my original drafts which I now realise used the old standard 5/8" seam allowance [employed in the early days of my sewing career until I followed more experience tutors who taught me 1 cm in most places is much easier than the larger one and then having to trim down after - made sense to me].

Anyway the colar is now referred to as a 'design element' but I'll be more careful next time.

The cuff was another design element that I hadn't intended at the outset. I wanted the cuff to have the plain colour lining but I realised it would have more impact turned back in half. The only problem here was that being an afterthought I had already allowed for the 'turn off cloth' for the other way so there is a slight border effect around the edges which isn't very professional and certainly makes it look 'home made'. 

I've got a T-Shirt and some Yoga Pants for my new Tai Chi QiGong classes starting next month on my cutting table so that's my next project.