Introducing the Turlough Shirt

It’s a very exciting day! I’m launching my first sewing pattern live on Sewing Street TV this morning.

I’ve been making this shirt for myself and my husband, Clive Bruder, for several years now and it’s a favourite of ours. I even got to wear it on The Great British Sewing Bee during Holiday Week causing ‘chest hair gate’ with Liz and receiving admiring comments from social media.  This shirt can take you from blossoming spring days in the April sunshine to warm autumn evenings.  I’ll be going through a load of different pattern hacks and ideas for you too, so grab yourself a pattern and read on.

My original Turlough Shirt was made from lovely light blue and white stripped fabric and this loose fitting garment will keep you cool and billow gently in the summer breeze.  It’s intentionally oversized as clingy clothes on a warm sunny day is not always comfortable.  I made mine with long sleeves, cuffs and a grandad collar.  The unique placket design is cool and refreshing while offering you cover and modesty too.  Just a thin slither of flesh will be revealed when worn. The fusible interfacing that needs to be put in the plackets will keep then looking crisp and sitting just where they should do.  But if you wish to add a fastening of some sort there are plenty of ideas you could add.

Placket opening 

You could add a rouleau loop to the left hand placket and a button to the right, maybe position one halfway and one at the top.  And if you sew the rouleau loop in place before adding the plackets to the shirt front, you wont see the stitching from the outside.  

For a bit more fun why not pop a zip on your placket.  Just grab a zip that co-ordinates with your fabric and is the correct length, and top stitch it in place once you finish sewing in your placket.  You’ll need a zip foot to sew it in place of course.  

Or you could shorten the placket opening to suit your own desire.  Work out how much you want to shorten it by, make the adjustment to the placket pieces and the shirt front opening too.  

Sleeves

My husband Clive @bruderfuldesign was good enough to test my pattern and he came up with some interesting takes on the shirt and its sleeves.  For one, he fanned out the sleeve pattern and turned it into a butterfly sleeve whilst the shirt body was lengthened slightly to turn it into a dress, fitted to the waist with a belt.  You can see this version modelled by our good friend Eve, this also includes a slight shortened front placket too.

You might even decide to go wild with your sleeves and not have any at all!  This was made at Clive’s request, i just made some matching bias binding and attached to the shirt body where the sleeves would have been.  A happy accident was the red and white stripped three quarter length sleeve option.  It was supposed to be long sleeved but I got cross with the cuff plackets I’d made so cut them off.  I don’t advise this technique.  Tea and patience is a much better option.  But the silver lining is that I do actually love this length.

Pattern placement

It’s fun to play around with pattern placement before you cut out your Turlough shirt.  The striped versions I made have my favourite variant of this, showing off the unique placket design.  Clive made shirts that played around with this in other ways, with the plain black placket and collar on the Frida Kahlo shirt, and the placement of the circles on the black and yellow spotty shirt. 

Fit

It’s so important to check the fit of your project before cutting into your main fabric, even more so if it’s a pattern you've not used before.  I suggest for this project you’ll want to check the chest size first, then the arm length and shirt body length.  Remember its designed to be oversized, so there is a generous amount of ease in the chest size.  You may want to run up a toile or a test run in cheaper fabric first. Calico is great for this, or just some scrap fabric from your stash or even an old bed sheet!  This will give you an opportunity to make sure the fit is right first as well as give you a chance to practice those tricky bits, if you wish.

Tricky Bits

The trickiest bit to make will probably be the front placket, so its worth taking your time.  If you’re unsure, it’s worth considering practising this section first in a toile.  The key to success for the placket is to stick to the sew line marked on the shirt front pattern piece as closely as possible.  In the instructions I mention marking this sew line with a fabric pen, friction pen, chalk or tailors tacks. As another option you could sew a basting stitch into your shirt front, set your machine to its longest stitch length and sew the line into place.  If you stick to this line accurately then you wont see them when the placket is finished.  When you snip into the placket corners, do this carefully and accurately as well, these little snips are important to getting your placket to sit nicely when finished.  

I’ve tried to find methods to attach your collar, cuffs and cuff plackets which are more user friendly and should be easier to construct.  The continuous looped cuff placket is a favourite of mine and gives a lovely finish.  You can, of course, swap this out for a cuff placket of your own choosing if you find that better.  Collars can be tricky at times too, so I've included a method I find more successful too construct.  It might be fun to add a collar too should you wish.  Grab a collar pattern from your favourite shirt pattern of a similar size, and when you sew the two collar stands together, just sandwich the collar piece in between.

However you make your Turlough, and whichever variation of pattern hacks you employ, enjoy the journey and share your handy work with me on social media @sewmarkfrancis