After managing to insta-shrink my brand new sweater at the moment of completion last week, I have approached the drive towards the completion of my sewing project (a woman’s shirt) with some trepidation. I will probably cut a big hole in the thing and set the collar on fire with my current success rate.

The shirt itself is probably about 70% complete, missing a sleeve, a bottom turned hem, a bit of topstitching and finishing with buttonholes and the like.

At the moment, however, the project is still stocking to the personally put together brief of ‘being something physically wearable’. As long as I can drape it around myself and it does the basic job of at least hiding my modesty, I am going to count it as at least a partial success.

Whether I ever wear the shirt (and I probably will, through sheer stubbornness as much as anything) I am quite proud of the way in which I have inserted the first sleeve, with no gathers or puckers, and have managed to work out what on earth the instructions for the collar meant. I am also quite surprised at the finish of the shirt. I know that I probably jumped over several better patterns to learn to sew on, but the collar of the shirt is exactly the same s I would expect to see on any ‘shop bought’ shirt, with no fewer steps or pieces to make the finished item easier for a home sewer. I don’t know why I would ever expect for it to be different in construction from other shirts, but the little rounded edge to the lower part of the collar that sits very the button band (this probably has a specific name, but I wouldn’t have a clue what it was) really makes me smile.

I still have quite a bit of work to do to finish the shirt; I just need another little injection of bravery and verve to finish those steps that remain.