Sleeveless Shirt with Side Lacings

I have finally managed to find time to sew something new for myself. I've actually had this shirt cut out for a month or more and thought it was time to get around to sewing it.

I got the idea for lacing up the sides of the shirt from a book I was flicking through at a book shop, I can't for the life of me remember the name of the book. It was something along the lines of anticraft or alternative sewing and is showed how to alter an op-shop shirt to have lace up sides. I decided I would make the shirt since I can never find anything that I am specifically looking for in op-shops.

The main fabric is a poly/cotton blend in a very nice red that is really difficult to photograph, it always looks really washed out. It also has a fine black pinstripe running through it. Ever since I first saw this fabric I wanted to make a shirt out of it. The binding and collar are all out of a fabric that I found in my stash that was of a similar weight and feel to the red fabric, I have no idea what it is nor where I got it from.

I used New look pattern 6704 view D (without the pockets) as the basis for the shirt.


I made a size 10 but since finishing the shirt and wearing it for a day I think it is a little too big around the top and perhaps an inch or two too long, I really should have done a quick tissue fit first.

There are 44 eyelets in total, each one was set using a hammer, it took two hours. Very tedious. I think that I really should buy a better eyelet setting tool. I currently use a hemline one but it is made of plastic and when you are doing such a large quantity of eyelets the tool gets destroyed pretty quickly and you end up with wonky eyelets.

I couldn't find any ribbon in my sewing box and I didn't want to go out and buy something so I decided to make the lacing from 12mm poly cotton bias tape that I folded in half and sewed together. I think it worked quite well. The buttons were originally intended for my jacket but since I changed the buttons for the jacket I have quite a few of these buttons available.