Cement worker

I made a shirt for Dad's birthday  :)

I used Burda 7767 custom-fit to his size that I fine-tuned with last year's shirt, and a fine-grade linen from Spotlight in a shade called "cement".  Very appropriate for a man like my Dad who is the handiest handyman you could ever hope to find!  Srsly.  He is.  Cementing would be an absolute doddle to Dad, I'm sure  :)
Last year's birthday shirt was a sort of "nice" short-sleeved shirt to wear out to smartish events, and this new one is more casual, more suitable to Dad's usual daytime activities; like working in the shed building stuff like The Chicken-Plucker (don't ask) and his own lathe, tinkering with the ute and trekking out through the bush to tend to his hives and chop wood.  And fire-fighting, although I kinda hope not!  
Being linen it will be a good cool shirt to wear all summer, and this one has long sleeves to protect Dad's arms from the sun.  He can roll them up if he desires without fear of embarrassment caused by tatty interior finishes: since the side and sleeve seams are French seams, and the armscye seams are flat felled seams.  I used my own tutorial for flat-felling a curved seam to achieve this neatly.

The pockets are bellowed and pointed at the nadir, and button closed with arrowhead flaps.  The buttons are from Fabulous Fabrics.  The lower hemline is curved, and as always I sewed a spare button inside to the side seam.

After I had finished sewing it; it was all nicely pressed, with the creases ironed into non-existence and all perfectly smooth and neat, like a newly sewn garment always is.  I looked at it askance.  It looked so ... pristine.  A bit immaculate.  It didn't look like a "Dad" sort of a shirt at all.  My Dad is very much a low-maintenance sort of a man.  So I gave it a second wash, a good shake-out and hung it out on the line to dry in the sun.  It came up with a very satisfyingly lived-in look; comfy, rumpled and crumpled.  I did not allow the iron anywhere near it.  Now it looks very "Dad".

A little tip; when you trim off the seam allowances and points off of the interfaced pieces of collars and cuff and the like before turning out, it can be handy to keep the larger trimmings.  They can be cut down into small squares, which since they are already pre-interfaced are useful for stabilising buttons sewn in areas which have no facing, such as the cuff split button...

and yes, this was the secret thing I have made recently.... I used a small strip of the leftover linen for the waistband on my lace skirt.