Color Blocking with White

 When I decided to challenge myself at the end of February to make a white shirt once a month I thought four weeks between shirts would be plenty....Wow....I can't believe how quickly the four weeks slipped by.  I'm going to have to pay attention and not waste any of my weeks.  It's easy to say, "I'll do it next week."  But when you only have four, you can't push it off too many times!

I did have to wait for my white fabrics to arrive, so I couldn't get too much of a jump on March.  I ordered several versions of white fabric from "Gorgeous Fabrics."  I had a hard time choosing, there were lots of lovely pieces, but in the end I restrained myself a bit and picked out four to get me started.  The fabric came right away, it was lovingly packed in tissue and plastic to keep it white, and Ann from the store sent me a very nice thank you email which I thought was extra special.  I felt a bit bad about unwrapping them and shoving them unceremoniously into the washing machine.

Here's what I got...

The bottom right hand corner is an ivory rayon twill.  It has lots of body and I already have an idea for how I want to use it.

Next to that is a soft cotton batiste.  It is very fine and sheer, almost a voile.  It is more lofty than the rayon and has a matte finish.

Next, a silk organza.  I really wasn't thinking about using it for the challenge, but I needed a new press cloth so I ordered it up to help get to the 'free shipping' level!  It might find its way into one of the shirts, we'll see.

The luscious stuff next to the organza is a silk georgette heavily embellished with tropical leaf embroidery.  I was afraid it might be stiff, but it is wonderfully soft and drapy...I'm going to have to think hard about what to do with this one.  Maybe just look at it!

And finally a great handkerchief linen.  It washed up beautifully, as did the batiste and the rayon, and has that telltale crumple that screams "I'm linen."

As I pondered what to do for my March project, I realized that it is the detail that distinguishes a white shirt.  It would be easy to end up with a whole closet of the same shirt.  With that thought in mind I, decided to use both the linen and the batiste.  If they were two different colors I would say that I was going to 'color block' them to add interest to my shirt, but I'm not sure what you call it when all the fabrics are the same color?  Anyway, that was the concept I was going for.

I chose my cut-on-sleeve, pull-over top as a starting point.  I made the yoke seam before cutting out the pattern which gave me nice clean edges to work with.  Because the batiste was so sheer, the seams became a focal point.  I spent a lot of time measuring and folding to get them relatively the same width.  I was planning to use a twin needle to do the top stitching, but the zigzag that is created with the bobbin thread actually showed through the sheer seams, so I ended up doing double rows of single needle stitching to finish the seams.  The neck is finished with a bias facing of the batiste and I added linen cuffs to finish the sleeves.

I am very happy with my "color-blocked" white shirt.  I think the two fabrics are great together and the seam detail gives it some interest.  I think I will enjoy wearing this one.  No rest for the wicked...on to April!