Then there was a little seam-ripper incident. I’m happily at the very end of things, finishing buttonholes and such, when I suddenly notice droplets of blood on my table, on my pattern pieces, on my buttons. My eyes race toward the shirt which of course had a trail of said droplets from the armpit to the cuffs.

I want to live in this shirt, not baby it, and I definitely I lived in this today. I’m not breaking any new glamorizons with this thing but it is the absolutely perfect drapey, comfy, throw-on-over-anything shirt. I really love the fabric, a weightier rayon twill from Dharma Trading. It’s like a cross between a soft cotton and a silk.

I absolutely adore the styling on this pattern, although Danger to those with Big Bosoms–do not attempt these pockets. They are HUGE and flop and drop about, making the whole effect much more there. Which is just fine on me.

This was my second attempt at a Burda mag pattern and while I love the styling, both pattern and instructions could use some help. Their magazine instructions are notoriously cursory, and sometimes flat out confusing in translation. But with all the sewing tutorials floating around the interwebs, who needs instructions?

I could not have done without these:

Turn of Cloth Allowance: one of the clearest explanations about turn of cloth or bend allowance. You’ll want to draft a separate under collar if the shirt pattern has only one collar piece (and this one did). It’s really easy to do.

Collar on Stand: I’m thinking it takes a bit of practice to make any collar look really clean but I thought this method eliminated a lot of extra fussing (or hand-sewing, ugh). There’s a slightly different, but similar-result-looking tutorial at Off the Cuff (you have to rummage around for parts 2 and 3 of this).

Attaching a Shirt Cuff: this is so easy and my cuffs turned out so beautifully!

(There is also another shirt cuff tutorial over at Fashion Incubator which uses the same technique but shows it on a more traditional cuff.)

Even after all these helpful tutorials, this was still a first shirt-making project and so loads of things went wrong. Blood, coffee, odd buttons whose color seemed to match inside but once outside almost clashed (white clashing with white, hmmm), terribly eased sleeves (I hate big sleeve ease and it seems like Burda has a lot), pocket flaps that didn’t quite cover the pockets (the pattern’s fault)–setbacks like this often end up in some theatrical sabotaging wherein I do something like throw the entire project and everything near it into some liquid where it will forever be unsalvageable.

I’m a tragic perfectionist, and not just with sewing. But, but, but I had a blast sewing this shirt. And exactly because I went at it like a trial run and took every step with curiosity rather than drive.

I’m always looking in garden design books for inspiration and ideas and often I tire of absolutely perfectly pruned, serene, photographic gardens, in which every plant is mature and which never seem to be in winter. One of my favorite magazines recently made a point of photographing desert-climate gardens in their barren seasons–so double the barrenness–because, the writer explained, the best gardens have strong “bones” that still show the garden even out of season.

In a like spirit, I show to you the crumpled shirt, the shirt that was certainly pressed but went through tucked and untucked, rolled up and unrolled all day long. That is the shirt I want to see. Annie Hall would be proud!

{Proenza Schouler white shirt, via La Garconne}

When I started making a list of classic fashion pieces to sew, I had mostly coats and blazers at the top of the list. A trench was at the very top, and I even looked into various trench patterns in hopes of trying it out. But then I tried on a few Burberry coats. Yes, the $1200 kind. I definitely don’t have a problem trying on luxury clothes even if I can’t afford them. I just love seeing the details and touching the fabric. I could live at Dries van Noten if only they’d set up a sofa bed in their sweet, lofty store in Antwerp. But trying on the “real” trench just ruined the idea of sewing one–I knew from then on out any trench-sewing expedition would get far too perfectionistic. The fit and details were too much to live up to.

I needed to thin out my coat ideas anyway; I live in Texas and wear coats maybe, oh, two months a year? Don’t be jealous–I wish I could layer a lot more than I do. Instead, I decided to start with something simpler and easy to wear year-round. A White Shirt!

The white shirt needs little explanation, but I don’t own a single white top at the moment–not even a t-shirt. And more than once I wished I had just a simple white shirt to put on with my black pants or jeans or whatever, when nothing else was working. I did a lot of shop-research a couple months ago and found my favorite stores awash in all kinds of white shirt interpretations. Some were prim and crisp like the Proenza Schouler shirt above, others were more artfully oversized and hanging crumply about the body as if raided from a man’s closet. I tend toward the latter, in an Annie Hall kind of way.

In my opinion Diane Keaton did it best, although Ms. Hepburn usually gets the most love on the “raided shirt” look:

I’ve decided to tackle making my husband a shirt this year, but since I’m a total newbie at shirtmaking thought I should do a practice run by making one for myself. Ha, well, I just really want my own shirt and I fell in love with this whole ensemble from Burda magazine:

I even bought fabric and supplies for the skirt as well, although it might be a bit too thick for a Texas summer. I just love this whole safari/camel/military/aviator thing–capturing so many trends at once, including the very current below-knee skirt length that often goes out as soon as it comes in but I actually dig it in a 40s kind of way.

I like that this shirt is big and drapey and can either tuck in or hang out over leggings. I’m especially in love with the pockets although they could overwhelm someone with a larger bust, which I most definitely do not have. I’ve never sewn a shirt collar before so I’m guessing it won’t be super smooth-looking, but after all this is just a trial run for another shirt, right?

So stay tuned for more details on Project White Shirt!