Hello Internet friends!

Today i’m super stoked to share one of my most recent makes, a Byrdie Button-Up! If you follow me on Instagram you’ll have seen a few snap shots of this top in progress on my dress form in both my stories and posts. This was a rather ambitious project not because it was a button up but because of the pleats all along the front, they were really intimidating! But Casey of Pattern Scout Studio has written an excellent set of directions supplemented by a sew along on her blog which made the whole sewing process run smoothly. This was the first time I’ve tried one of her patterns and I was really impressed by the quality of the pattern along with the offering of multiple bust sizes for her patterns!

After spying an instagram post on the PatternScout account where Casey made a lovely yellow/green version with the pleats running all the way to the hem line I decided that I was going to do that for my version as well! I decided to use a more structured fabric than Casey’s version, settling on this lovely variable striped viscose/linen/cotton blend from BlackBird Fabrics. I kinda had to cross my fingers and wish for the best in terms of how how the variable stripe was going to work with the pleats but I tried as much as possible to line up the right and left fronts when I was cutting the pattern so that they would match.

The cut pattern actually sat for a bit mostly because I was kinda scared to get started with sewing all of those pleats….but once I got started it was really smooth sailing! I took my time, pinning each pleat with plenty of glass head pins so that I could give each one a good press before sewing, then measuring out and pressing the next one before moving on to the next, making it a really meditative process that when by faster than I thought it would :) AND I got super lucky and all the stripes/pleats ended up matching almost perfectly between the right and left fronts! :D It was so satisfying to do the final press of the pleats and see how well they matched.

After the pleat making process the rest of the dress shirt came together really quickly especially since this button-up is yoke-less (although she does provide instructions to create a yoked version on her blog!) The only snag that I hit was during the sleeve placket construction, the pattern piece for the sleeve placket has crease lines marked on it but the instructions had you pressing tiny 1/8” hems which was really difficult, I ended up using the pre marked pattern crease lines and sewing a basting stitch to help with the pressing instead of trying to press those tiny hems, other than that small note the instructions were great!. Had I not run out of thread I would have easily finished the whole shirt in two evening’s worth of sewing but I lost the game of yarn chicken there lol. Once I was able to re-stock up on thread and snag these awesome, matching orange crescent shaped buttons (they kinda look like cat heads to me which is why I’ve sewn them on the way I have) my first Byrdie was done! and yes I specify first because there will for sure be repeats of this pattern!

I really like the fit of this dress-shirt, I selected a size 12 in the B cup and graded to a size 10 at the waist/hip to better match my measurements (my measurements are provided in the bio of my Instagram in case you ever want to compare sizes). I also shortened the length by 1.5” and the sleeve length by 1” (I got the sleeve length right this time! no cold wrists when I put my arms out straight!), I also decided to do the traditional sleeve instead of the bishop sleeve due to the added structure of the fabric. I really like the slimmer fit made by sewing the pleats all the way down so for any future iterations without pleats I plan on comparing the non pleat pattern pieces to this final sewn version to make sure I’ll get the same fit. In terms of anything else I’d change I’m not so sure that the band collar fits me? I think it’s a bit big so I may play around with going down a size for just the collar and see how that looks.

I hope you guys like this version of the Byrdie! I can’t wait to sew up a few more including one with a neck bow in a floaty flora print (again Casey has a tutorial on her blog!) as well as a dress version!