Simplicty 1941: Short sleeve shirt

I'm on a bit of a shirt sewing thing at the moment - I sewed one for my son last night (still to be blogged) and so I thought I'd finish this one off - its been sitting in a drawer half finished for a couple of months. I inserted a sleeve realised how much I didn't like the pleated sleeve heads and stuck it aside.
Its version B of S1941, one of the amazing fit patterns. Is it just me or do they never fit right plus I can never work out which size to start with. So I traced off a B cup and did my normal 1.5" FBA instead on a sz20. I deepened the back darts by 1/2" and extended them, even after pinning them while on me (or trying to at least) I still have a lot of fabric puddling in my lower back so the next version I want to try eliminating the back darts and sewing a channel and threading through elastic - I saw it on a RTW shirt and it worked really well.
Its ended up a bit shapeless, looks fine with the belt but feels quite loose without, again I think adding an elasticated back next time will help that and I might end up doing that to this shirt as well.


The sleeves come with quite deep pleats, I found them to be way too big and made the sleeve head puff up a LOT.....I ended up cutting nearly 2" off the top of the sleeve cap to try and get them to sit smoother. For some reason I had sewed and serged the side seam allowances before I left it so I couldn't put them in flat without unpicking a lot, it would be a lot easier to do them flat and would turn out a lot nicer and smoother.


I used a stretch poplin, it doesn't seem to stay pressed very well though, and inside I just serged the seam allowances, nothing fancy!


This version was really turned into a bit of a practise go, gave me a good feel for the pattern and what to change next time and I've already picked out a really nice soft plaid for next time.