Making a Square Neck Rave Shirt by George + Ginger Patterns.
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I've previously made The Rave Shirt Set with the Angled Neck Line (see my review here) but thought I'd challenge myself and make a Square neck version.
The options for The Rave Shirt Set are:
scoop, square or angled neckline
short, 3/4 or long sleeves
cropped version with band
Recommended fabric for The Rave Shirt Set is a 2-way or 4-way stretch knit with structure and good recovery with at least 50% stretch. I had a metre of Jersey Cotton from Forever Fabrics that I was able to cut out a size 16 from. I didn't have quite enough fabric to cut out the long sleeves - I cut them 8.5 cm shorter and thought I'd see how they looked when I tried it on.
Using the handy layers feature on The Rave Shirt Set Pdf Pattern I printed out sizes 14 and 16 and graded so that the shoulders and upper bust are size 14, full bust is 16, waist is 14 and hips are size 16. Grading is really easy as there are grading points on the pattern so you know where to draw your lines to and from.
The instructions for The Rave Shirt Set are easy to follow, on the whole, but I felt that the square neckline section could be better explained. The diagram showing how to pin the neckline to the bodice isn't particularly helpful because it doesn't illustrate that you have to pin and pivot taking into account what the seam allowance is. I did sew each corner of the band to the neck line individually making sure that there wasn't any puckering before sewing up the rest of the neck band. Once I had the neck band attached to the neck line I serged the raw edges, pressed it and top stitched.
When I tried on The Rave Shirt Set I was happy to find that the sleeves were just about long enough. I could of just created a small hem but instead I decided to add a sleeve band. I measured the wrist of the sleeve to get the width (8") and decided on a 2" height. This meant that I had to cut out 2 rectangles 8" x 4".
The final thing that I did with The Rave Shirt Set was to add a small piece of ribbon to the inside neck at the back - there is a very subtle difference between the front and back so I wanted the ribbon to be easy to spot - hence the bright pink!
