The final garment I made for the self-made wardrobe – 2nd Archer Button Up Shirt

I don’t have a whole hell of a lot to say about this piece other than that this is the final garment I made for the self-made wardrobe project, and I’m sure it’ll get plenty of wear now that the project is complete. One of the upsides to making your own clothing, is that you get to make clothing that lasts for lots and lots of wears, so I’m looking forward to having this shirt in my closet for a damn long time.

Now lets get into the details:

MATERIALS

3 yards plaid cotton twill
13 half inch buttons
Black thread
Starch (lots)

PATTERN

The Archer Button Up Shirt from Grainline Studios – just like for my first shirt, I cut a straight size 4 & made view A. Then I added length and worked an inverted box pleat (instead of the regular box pleat the pattern calls for).

PATTERN MODIFICATIONS

I kept the pattern modifications from my first Archer which were to add 5 inches (12.7cm) of length to the body and 1 inch (2.5cm) of length to the sleeves. Since I added so much length I also added more buttons.

WHAT WORKED

Starch. Lots of starch. I don’t often use starch when I’m sewing, but this fabric is a cotton twill that ended up being very woodgey-wibbly-wobbly once I washed it, so after an age & a half of fighting to get the pockets to behave, I began applying starch liberally, and after that everything was smooth sailing.

The fabric is a nice medium weight cotton twill that I think will wear really nicely, and is a nice wardrobe complement to my first archer which is a very light weight cotton.

And as weird as it is, I love the brown/orange/white colorway of this plaid!

WHAT DIDN’T WORK SO WELL

The fabric was a total pain to work with at first, but after a good starching it started to behaving itself. Unfortunately I started with the starch at the front pocket stage – so the cutting was a total nightmare. The only good thing about the cutting stage, was I got the plaids to match (unlike my first Archer).

But it would seem that I cannot make an archer without screwing something up, so this time it was the button placement.

It turns out that 2.5” + 2.5” =/= 4.5” and that I should not math before coffee.

But at least that’s the only major thing that went wrong, and it does make the shirt really hard to mis-button.

I do plan on making more button up shirts, so maybe the third Archer is the charm? Maybe if I make it in a solid color?