The Shirt of Many Pleats

So I guess I first saw Vogue 1165 when the Fall or Winter books came out last year. It was love at first sight! Even better the pattern comes in all range of sizes and is one of Sandra Betzina's Today's Fit patterns.

I love this pattern. I will love it more when I tweak it more for me. I am also happy to say that I wore the shirt with the popped collar all day long, which is unusual for me {Sorry Dana}. And I liked the look. Although the shirt did not want the collar to stay popped, which is problematic because there is a seam that runs down the center inside back of the collar.

So let me start off with saying that working with the poly/cotton was a breeze with this shirt. It took the pleats so well and didn't look too worn after a long day in the car, walking around the Richmond Convention Center and then driving home. You can see in the two photos above that the shirt has a nice curve detail at the hemline which is great, but I felt like the sides were  a little too short without something underneath, hence the cami in the first photo. I did measure my other dress shirts and this shirt was longer than them so I figured I'd be ok. Oh well. Next time I make this shirt I am lengthening it about 2 inches all the way around.

You can see the pleating detail a little better here, and I really just love the sunburst effect it has. It was a pain to cut out, slightly less of a pain to sew up, but totally worth it. I altered the pattern because according to the sizing I was one size bigger than my waist in the bust area and there were two sizes difference between  my hips and waist. When I make this shirt again I am only going to increase the waist to hemline measurement by 1 size. The flare between my waist and the hemline was way too much and after playing with it a bit I can totally get away with the one size difference. I also had to let out the arm seam a bit so that my range of motion was better. I could have gotten away with leaving the underarm seam the way it was, but let's face it - I have two boys and I am going to play and pick them up and it wouldn't do to be worrying about that seam holding.

So what do you guys think? I think I need this shirt in a happy yellow color :) Have a great day guys!