This Willi Smith pattern has been in my collection since it was brand new in (cough, cough) the 1970s. I seem to remember a pair of pink cotton pleated pants. Very summery, I'm sure.I also vaguely think I made the jacket at some point but the details have faded from memory.
I pulled this pattern out as a contender for a "camp shirt". I'm attending the PatternReview weekend at the end of May, in Stratford Ontario. Among the many delights of this 3 day fabricalooza is a camp shirt contest. I understand a camp shirt to be a loose fitting shirt with a convertible (rather than stand) collar. This pattern seemed close, although it has a back yoke. The simplest camp shirts wouldn't have one.
It also has nicely curved shirt tails rather than the straight hem mentioned in the Wikipedia article. What do they know?
Anyhow, my shirt. It is loose. It is made from a woven rayon Hawaiian print that I got from a lady who spent 6 months of every year there, happily buying fabric to the point where she was well beyond having enough time to sew it all up. It's a wonderfully exuberant floral, don't you think?
It should be nice and airy for the hot days to come.
Can you spot the yoke with pleats? I thought not.
The curved shirt tail hem is always a challenge, I find. To look nice, it has to be turned twice, but each bit to be turned up is bigger than the bit above it, making it hard to (a) press and (b) topstitch the hem so it looks nice and lays perfectly flat.
Behold the hem. I controlled the fullness by running a line of basting just below the hem line and another in the hem allowance, and easing the hem in (twice). It was a bit of a pain but the result looks pretty good, if I do say so myself. Serendipitously, I had perfect pink buttons in stash.
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