The Crab Shirt Begins

Tonight I started working on my next shirt, which I'll call my "Crab Shirt" because of the fabric print I plan to use. The Pattern is a 1965 vintage McCall's 7909 shirt pattern. I've picked View "B" which is a short sleeve pullover. I thought that the V-neck front opening was a long placket, but on closer inspection of the pattern I discovered it's really a turned facing with a stitch line that simulates a placket.

My first step was to sort out the pattern pieces and iron them. My second was to re-draw the pieces on tracing paper. Fortunately I have a glass top dining table. I was able to lay my tracing paper on top of the pattern and shine a light up from the floor.

This made it easier to transfer the cutting, seam, and stitch lines to the tracing paper. I used my own set of french curves and discovered many minor variations in the pattern with the line I expected to see when I laid the curve on the pattern piece.

Once I had all the pieces transferred, it was easy enough to roughly cut out the traced parts and call it a night. Maybe tomorrow I'll start pinning out my traced pieces to the fabric. The tracing is tedious, but it helps me learn the pattern pieces and saves the original pattern.

G' night!