Great British Sewing Bee - Boyfriend Shirt

This is another garment I finished before Christmas and have only just got round to photographing... and also the first shirt I made. I used it as a bit of practice before attempting the Negroni shirt for Mr. Makes, as it doesn't have plackets or cuffs and the yoke is a bit of a cheat by being stitched on top.
I used a red and navy check brushed cotton fabric, which although I love is actually not all that easy to sew as it frays so easily. The pattern I used is from the first Great British Sewing Bee book. I like the style of the shirt, but I again found errors in the pattern.

I didn't understand the instructions for the sleeves, for what I now realise were flat felled seams, so I didn't bother to do them. This does mean that raw edges are visible when the sleeves are rolled up as they are designed to do.

I am reasonably happy with this make, but as you can tell the fit is not perfect. It looks cute with a vest top underneath (there is one in the picture, although the light looks like I'm flashing the camera!), but if I do all the buttons up there's not enough room in the chest area. One thing that bothers me about the patterns from the GBSB book is that they don't tell you the finished garment measurements for you to check yours against. You could measure the pieces yourself but I always forget and just sew a size 10, which isn't always ideal as you can tell.

Despite the fit issues, when I wore this back home at my parents my sister didn't believe I had made it and insisted on looking for the tag... so that's a win!
I love tartan/check comfy shirts, and they're very fashionable right now so I am going to make another. However I'll definitely add quite a lot to the side seams so it's a looser fit and can be buttoned right to the top!

Mr.Makes was none to happy about me saying he looked like a lumberjack...although he did say I looked like I was off to the farm in this outfit...

Emily Kate.