Completed: The Bruyère Top
Now that’s one plaid flannel top that definitely doesn’t look like something a man would wear, amirite.
This is the Bruyère top from Deer & Doe. I’ve actually had this pattern for quite a while – I bought it immediately after it’s release. I LOVE the cute and feminine twist it gives to a plain button down, and I knew it’d be beautiful in a plaid flannel. I’ve been sitting on it for this long because I haven’t been able to find the right plaid flannel – either the plaid was unbalanced (get out of my nightmare), or the colors were ugly, or the flannel was shitty. Or maybe a combination of the three. Either way, no Bruyère for me :(
This plaid flannel actually came from the same place that the pattern did – aaaaaall the way from Paris, France! Yup! It was the first piece of fabric I bought during my shopping spree, from Les étoffes du Sentier. The shop had a 3 meter minimum, but it was only 5€ a meter and I figured 3 is a safe number for a button up, so I went with it. It’s a nice soft cotton plaid flannel and I like how the colors are so un-girly, especially with this pattern. And, bonus – even after plaid-matching, I have leftovers to make something else with! Yes!
Seriously, though, I’m pretty happy with how this turned out (if you couldn’t tell :P ). I cut the size 34, and the only fitting change I made was to remove a little bit of length from the peplum and sleeves, because I am so short. Other than that, it fits pretty well! I’m surprised at much much I like the collar – I was afraid it would look flat and dumb, but the flannel gives it some lovely body.
For cutting the plaid, I cut on the single layer and cut the waistbands, cuffs, placket and back yoke on the bias. Since the bias tends to stretch, I also cut my second yoke on the straight grain, as well as a second set of waistbands. Further, I interfaced my waistbands (to be really sure they don’t stretch out), as well as the cuffs, collar, and placket. I’m not sure why these aren’t included in the instructions, but my guess is to keep the overall look of the shirt very soft and unstructured. Which is fine, but, I do think anything that has a button will need a little extra help from interfacing. I’d definitely make some test button holes before you commit, at any rate!
I spent a really long time trying to decide how to order the construction steps for this. The instructions are fine as they are – the process for attaching the placket/collar/facing is very clever (and clean!) and it works. However, I’m a diehard who wanted flat felled seams. In addition – I wasn’t 100% on the fit of the side seams, and I wanted to sew that last so I could tweak it after attaching the placket (when sewing flat felled shirt seams, once generally attaches the sleeves before sewing the side seams. Sewing a flat felled seam in the round just sounds like a painful thing I don’t want to do). Because of how the shirt is assembled per the instructions, you can’t really switch them out – you have to have the hem sewn to add the placket, but the side seams need to be sewn to add the hem. I know this sounds really vague and probably doesn’t make sense, but if you look at the instructions for this shirt vs ones for, say, the Negroni, it will. Anyway, this is what I ended up doing:
– I left the side seams open and sewed about 2″ of the shirt hem by the placket
– Followed the instructions for adding the collar, placket and facing
– Attached the sleeves with flat-felled seams
– Sewed the side seams with flat-felled seams
– Finished the remainder of the hem
That worked out great! My shirt is finished with flat-felled seams and it looks beaaaaaauuuutiful on the inside as well as the out :D
What else? Well, I added PEARL SNAPS. God, I love those things – nothing like being able to Hulk out of our clothes at the end of the day amirite. I feel like the very top needs a pearl snap (it’s not marked on the pattern), however, I couldn’t get the prongs through all the layers so no pearl snap there!
Here’s the inside. I finished the edge of my facing with pinking shears – I think anything else would show a ridge on the right side. Of course, I probably should have first sewed a line of stitching before pinking, because it’s already fraying like crazy, but whatev.
