Hello Internet Friends!

Today I’m brining you another summery make, a tropical Willamette shirt by Hey June Handmade. I snagged this fab tropical fish print rayon slub at the end of last summer from Blackbird Fabrics (although I recently spied it on Dressews’s new website if you are local and want to snag some!) and it’s been quietly biding it’s time until the summer weather this year. I had originally earmarked this fabric for another cropped Kalle shirt but decided I wanted something a bit different after seeing some very ‘Hawaiian shirt’-esq tops pop up all over the place. I wanted something that wasn’t quite a full length dress-shirt but also not cropped and had a fairly loose fit and I also felt like trying something new!

I ultimately landed on the Willamette shirt after Heather and the Pugs re-posted her striped version during this year’s Me Made May. I had previously been intrigued by the Willamette but had dismissed it thinking I didn’t need yet another yoked dress-shirt pattern. I should have looked more closely at the pattern sketch since it’s actually a pop over shirt! The front placket is sew to the other front and gives a nice illusion of a hidden placket dress-shirt without having to sew any buttons which significantly speeds up the sewing time! Another thing about this pattern is that the collar piece is partially finished with the placket facing which could lead to some interesting colour blocking choices you could make the collar and facing different!

For this version I cut a straight size 12, view C, and elected to leave the length as is since I could easily shorten after the fact. I didn’t end up needing to since the ‘cropped’ version that I cut pretty much hit at my hips where I wanted (a rare event that I don’t have to shorten a shirt!). The only change to the pattern that I made was to raise the sewing line of the front placket by ~1” for a bit more coverage so that I wouldn’t have to add a button later, to figure out how much I wanted to raise it I sewed everything until sewing the placket down so I could try it on and put a pin where I wanted have the shirt be ‘unbuttoned’.

Other than that minor adjustment the pattern fits really well!! For future versions I may make a slight shoulder adjustment since I find that to get everything to sit nicely I have to have the back collar sitting slightly off the back of my neck, doesn’t really bother anyone but me though lol. This was also a super fast sew! Once I had everything cut during one of my marathon cutting sessions the whole shirt was sewn up in an evening! Very satisfying!

I think both the print of this fabric and the feel of it really make this top for me. The print is just so much fun, it’s like a ‘Hawaiian -shirt’ without being over the top ‘Hawaiian’ and the drape and feel of the rayon slub is kind of silky almost, making it a dream to wear. It’s also a very breathable fabric which will be perfect for the summer! I’m already plotting one or two more Willamette shirts since they are so easy to pop on and style, a bit more than a simple woven t-shirt while sill being more casual than a full button up dress-shirt. It’s also a great top to throw on right before that early morning work from home zoom call! So very much worth the sewing investment in these strange times!