Shirt *Construction* techniques

[Hendrick]

As a rule, topstitching is done on the visible side. Here's how I was tought to do a Brooks brothers style sleeve inset. Obviously, the seam allowances here are different between sleeve and corpus of the shirt. I was tought to baste right to right, the sleeve under the corpus at half the seam value then stitch at the correct value on the sleeve side. Then pick out the basting and fold the seam allowance of the sleeve over the allowance of the corpus and iron on the right side, seam folded correctly. Now, on the inside, settle and baste the seam at about half the width of your topstitch. Don't hesitate to wet the insides with a swad of natural spunge or brush and some water with starch. Turn rightside and lower your iron vertically on the seam for the excess allowance to settle (it is mostly bias...). Then topstitch from the right side. Never pull and always guide your work curved on the machinebed when topstitching. Lastly, thin out seam ends at a 45 degree angle where they are going to be felled; it will make better felling and topstitching your sideseams...

Cheers, Hendrick

[spookietoo]

Guys, lots of great info here. I'm about to tackle a few shirts for myself, so will see how it goes.

So, to repay the favor just a tiny bit:

If you heat the fabric with the iron first, the glue will melt into it, and then you can iron over it to glue the layers together - just be careful not to get it on the sole plate of your iron!

I honestly never fret over glue gunk on my iron anymore. You simply need to run it over a dryer sheet to remove the glue. I keep one in a zip lock bag with a couple of paper towels next to my ironing board. The towels prevent the oils from the dryer sheet from getting on your board cover and then I also iron over them to remove the oils and residual glue gunk from the sole plate. Learned this from a home sewing forum. One of my favorite "hacks".