Wow – I feel like it’s been a while since I posted something on Monday. I’m so glad the weather is sunnier and we can all start looking forward to spring – if it decides to show up! Since it’s still pretty chilly here I made a little shirt over the weekend to hold me over until I can wear my summer things again. How is your corner of the world doing?

I think I have had this stripey knit since the fall – but of course I’m only getting to it now. It’s a lightweight sweatshirt fleece and is amazingly cozy. I’ve worn this shirt two days in a row now and there might be a third in it’s future since I haven’t had a run-in with a small set of sticky hands yet! Is that bad?! I could tell you I washed it in-between, but I suppose that wouldn’t be true… hmmm…

I’ve been eyeing the abundance of drop shoulder shirts out there. Especially in sweaters this winter. So I pulled out my self-drafted High-Low Chevron dress pattern to start and went from there. The new shirt is shorter and has almost no high-low hem, though I did make it about 2″ higher in the front – you can’t really tell. And obviously this shirt has long sleeves. The body of a drop shoulder shirt is actually quite similar to a dolman sleeve shirt, in fact I suppose it could be exactly the same, though my research tells me I am only half right. Apparently the drop shoulder shirt generally has a more structured underarm area that leads to the sleeve, where-as the dolman tee is usually looser and has a large armhole that continues to where the cuff is attached.

Anyhow… I have discovered that I love the drop shoulder for two reasons. First – it is really great for me because I have broad shoulders. I tend to have trouble buying fitted shirts because my shoulders just don’t fit. This means I gravitate towards raglan, dolman and now – drop shoulder – type sleeves. They don’t have a seam at the shoulder so I don’t have to worry about fit there. Second – they are super comfy, likely because they are mostly (exclusively?) made from knits! If there is anything I like it’s a comfortable top. I am most definitely not one of those people who will wear something uncomfortable because they are supposed to. (Though I think I tried to do that a lot to fit in in high school!)

I aimed to match stripes, but I purposely didn’t try too hard because I wanted the shirt to be more relaxed looking. I cuffed the sleeves and used my double needle to top-stitch around them and the neckline. I also used it to hem the bottom of the shirt, because I decided I didn’t want to add a cuff to the hemline because it would look too “casual sweater” and not so much “shirt”. The back of the shirt has a seam down the centre – which for some reason I did not photograph – sorry. The seam helps to shape the shirt and I really like how it looks. The extra seams add that extra little detail to make your shirt look more professional.

I am happy to tell you that these are really easy to make, since there is no “easing in” of a sleeve. The sleeve fits into the place where you would normally sew a cuff on a dolman tee and extends from there. I likely should make another one and show you – but that may have to wait until the fall when I will hopefully/maybe/possibly sew another one of these for myself! If you want to try it you can use the Dolman Tee tutorial I have written on how to draft and sew a dolman tee. Or you can get a great Dolman tee pattern from Sew Much Ado and add some sleeves. To add sleeves, I put the finished (no cuffs added) dolman tee on and measured from the armhole to my desired sleeve length along the inside/underside of my arm. Then I traced a sleeve from a sweater I like, marked the length from the hem of the sleeve up, made sure the armhole and top of the sleeve were the same size and sewed them together. Hmmmm… maybe not so clear unless you are super adventurous? Let me know if you want one and I will put the tutorial on my list.

One more shot of me being model-y with awesome squintey far-away eyes. (how embarrassing!) I must thank my husband (no relation to the previous sarcastic comment intended) for going out and taking these photos. It was -6 degrees Celsius out, that’s 21 degrees Fahrenheit, and he was kind enough to carry my coat so I could try to warm up between shots! Super chilly – but the outdoor pictures are so much nicer that it’s totally worth it. Oh, and let’s leave with this one… me staring at my shoes at dusk in a deserted area – with no purse, coat or hat in the middle of winter… Eek! I’ve got to think up some more realistic settings!