I´m struggling to figure out how I want to dress now that life has changed so much since Covid first hit. I´ve been thinking all along that what I really need are a series of short woven white tops, to treat as t-shirts, and toss on over any pants at all.
Line drawing of The Friday Pattern Company´s Donny shirt.
This does not seem to be the case. Here´s a perfectly nice top — The Friday Pattern Company´s Donny. It´s also a perfectly fine pattern, but it just doesn´t work for me. No fault of its own!
As so many have testified, this is a fun, easy, pattern to sew. If that´s what you want, I can highly recommend it! I really only changed one major thing for my version: I hate back yoke gathers and turned them into tidy little pleats. Very nice!
Photo of the back of a white cotton shirt showing
the back yoke with two pleats.
Though, I did straighten the hem; also a personal quirk. And, somewhat irrelevantly, I added a second pocket. Not big changes.
But my fabric choice was awful: I will never, ever, iron a casual shirt. Or anything else I can avoid ironing. Lulled into some sort of brain-fade caused, no doubt, by my love of crumpled linen, I must have thought that 100% cotton would have the same charm when washed.
Photo of the front of a short-sleeved white cotton top
with a small open collar and two front patch pockets.
It doesn´t. I dutifully ironed this shirt as I made it, but nothing will salvage the wrinkled mess it is coming fresh from the dryer. And unlike wrinkled linen, which just looks relaxed, this unironed cotton looks a hot mess. Sigh.
Not to mention that I learned that I don´t like the feel of a tightly woven cotton against my skin nearly as much as I like the feel of linen, or of a slightly heavier weight, textured, cotton. Sew and learn, I guess.