The Rosa shirt - first day style

I started my new job this week. It was pretty strange (and nerve racking) to be the new girl again after more than 9 years at the old place. I find that it always helps to have something new to wear on the first day!  I actually finished this project a few weeks ago but have been saving it to wear for the new job. 

I bought the Rosa shirt and shirt-dress pattern from the Tilly and the Buttons stand at the Handmade Fair, only a few days after it was released. I was excited about making this as I've never made a shirt before and there were a number of new techniques. The styling is very 70s which is an era I love. I also bought some gorgeous 'raindrop' fabric by Cotton and Steel from Maud's Fabric Finds on the same day. I was torn between grey/blue and grey/hot pink. I went for the hot pink in the end and bought some matching hot pink buttons from John Lewis to match. I was a bit nervous about all the topstitching in this project so decided to just use a coordinating grey thread in case I made any mistakes. I think this was a good choice in retrospect as additional pink stitching may have looked too much with the pattern on the fabric. 

The first thing that struck me was how many pattern pieces there were in this project. It too forever to trave off and cut out. I also managed to get one of the collar pieces wrong when cutting out so had to re-do this. The shirt uses princess seams with a mock-felled seam finish. Both of these are new techniques to me, but Tilly's instructions were fabulous as usual and I managed to get the hang of both pretty quickly. The topstitching was ok in the end, I just took my time and managed to finish it neatly.  I also took my time with the collar and am over the moon with how it turned out - I've struggled to get nest collars on other projects and this success was definitely down to the clear instructions. 

The sleeves are turned up, with a button tab to hold them in place. I tried this, but didn't like the look of the wrong side of the fabric showing. I used the fold up technique from the Poppy playsuit by Sew Over It to give the impression of turned up sleeves, but showing the right side of the fabric. The only mistake I made was the positioning of the top button. I was annoyed with myself about this, but it isn't that obvious when on, so not too bad.  I didn't have to make any adjustments to the do at all. I'll be making a dress version very soon!

Here I am wearing it on my first morning: