Constructing the Negroni shirt

It's been said before, and I'll say it again: Colette's instructions are excellent. Designer Sarai Mitnick and her team aim at making 'Sewing Patterns that Teach'. The 25 pages instruction booklet that came with the Negroni pattern certainly taught me some new tricks. One of them involved cutting a template out of cardboard to assist in pressing perfectly formed patch pockets.

In addition to the instruction booklet I found some useful tutorials on various blogs. The best advice on how to get perfect collar points was found on Pamela Erny's blog Off the Cuff. Pamela shares the secrets of Custom Shirtmakers: "When we want a point, we SEW a point, we do not pivot." And: "We TURN collars, we don't poke them out with pointy objects." Makes sense to me! 

So I turned the collar following Pamela's rules. It's clean, easy and fast. 

Then there was that moment of fear that everyone who sewed the Negroni shirt will recognize. 

Bummer! Is this really how it is supposed to look?

Peter Lappin to the rescue! I checked the pictures of his famous Men's shirt Sew-along and discovered that my mess looked a lot like Peter's mess. There was light at the end of the tunnel!