 Hey guys, it's Brandon, creator of Happily Dressed, the fashion blog dedicated to self-acceptance, self-confidence, and self-sufficiency, and welcome back to the channel. So today I am trying something for the first time. As you can tell from the title, I am attempting to make a button-up. And the only reason I say attempting and I'm not throwing this into the how-to category is because I messed up. I've already made the button-up. It's actually at home, so I might have to insert a clip of it. But basically, a few things went wrong. So I am walking you through my first attempt at making a button-up, so you don't make the same mistakes I did. So I'm using the Simplicity Pattern 9157. I saw it in the store and thought it was pretty cool. A problem I didn't realize is to the end is that I did not cut my right and left the right way, so they just meet in the middle instead of overlapping in the middle. So that was actually the biggest issue that I could not fix. I also made some adjustments to this pattern to make the hem a little shorter just because I don't like my button-ups to be to the middle of my thigh. So I had it stop maybe an inch down from where my natural waistline is. That also caused some problems because this shoulder seam on this pattern isn't right on the shoulder. It's a little bit above the shoulder, so I had to readjust my back pattern because of that. And then the collar was very, very tricky. But I walk you through how I got past the collar because that actually was the only real issue that I did not think I could solve. So let's just get started. So I started off by cutting out the right pattern pieces. You wanna make sure you look at the size that you need and cut out that same size for every piece. The sleeve, the front, the back, the facing, and the collar. They each have a number that's supposed to match up. Mine was 36. Next, I went ahead and laid the pattern pieces out on my fabric. The instructions give you ways to lay out your pattern pieces so that way you can do it the most efficiently without much left over fabric. But because mine was a print that was pretty specific, I went ahead and separated how I cut everything out. Here is my fabric. I loved it. It was thrifted so it cost me literally less than a dollar and it had a cute little Christmas depiction on it. After that, I went ahead and marked all the special marks so cut out my little Vs. And I should have dotted my circles, which I do not do, but I will do later on in this video. But yeah, you wanna cut into where you're supposed to your markings but not further than the seam allowance. After that, I went ahead and cut out my interfacing for both front facings and also the collar. And now I went and started on one, two, three. So I stay stitched the neck holes of the front and the back and then I also worked on the pocket. That is the stay stitching done just to make sure that your neck hole does not stretch. And this is the pocket. I thought it turned out really cute. This is my first time actually doing a legitimate pocket for a button up. So I was really happy with the way that turned out. One of the easiest steps. And now I'm combining the front and backs together right sides facing. I went ahead and pinned that down and then sewed it. After that was done, I moved on to the sleeve, reading the instructions. It's really cool that once you have your markings, you're able to just match those up from the sleeve to the front and backs of your shirt and pin accordingly so you know everything is even. I really do like that aspect of store-bought patterns. And then I took it to the sewing machine. Once that was done, I went ahead and sewed on the pocket as well. And here is what this bad boy is looking like with one sleeve on and we got the pocket. This is also the next day, but we were making progress, which excited me. So I moved on to the next sleeve and pinned that down by matching the markings, making sure it was even, and then took it to the sewing machine. And as you can see too, I'm pulling in the middle of both sandwich fabrics to make sure that I don't have any unnecessary pleats or catching anything by accident. And then I went and took that seam to the iron like I did with all my seams previously and then also surged it once it was done. And this is that bad boy on with both sleeves. I was getting really excited here because we were making progress and it all seemed pretty easy. And now I am closing up the side seams. This is what that bad boy looks like with finished arm holes. And then I went ahead and took it just like before to the ironing board and ironed out my seams, pressed them out nice and good. And then I took that to the serger as well. And if you don't have a serger, you can just use a zigzag stitch. Now we moved on to the dreaded part of the collar and the front facings. So I started off by ironing down my interfacing onto my collar and my front facings and then followed the collar instructions by cutting in a dip that actually had to be so much bigger than that. And then once that was done, I went ahead and put the front and back of the collar right sides facing to each other. And sewed all the way around, stopping at the gap that I cut out. But once I did that, I cut all the excess seam allowance so the collar could lay flat. Once I turned it inside out or right sides out and pressed it. And the next I had to bring out the pattern again because I forgot to mark some dots on the shirt. So I took that back pattern out in the front and marked where the collar was supposed to lay. And this was the tricky part for me because I could not figure out what they were telling me but basically once I pinned the facing on as well and the collar, I found where the collar was supposed to meet at the shoulder seam. And I also realized that the collar had to be wedged in between the front facing and the front of the garment. So that way when I sew at the seam allowance of the front facing and the collar, I was able to sandwich part of the collar in. So when you flipped it right sides out, you wouldn't be able to see it and it'd be attached. And that sounds very complicated but you'll just see as I work what I mean, hopefully. So once I figured that out, I went ahead and actually prepared my front facing because I was just pinning to figure out what the heck the collar was saying. So I surged it and also cut it so that way it stretched more. And then I pinned it all down and got it ready to go to the sewing machine. And there I just sewed at the 5 eighths of an inch seam allowance that the pattern called for, trying to make sure I caught the collar in what I was sewing as well as catching that extra part that was sticking out. I know that all sounds complicated but hopefully it'll make sense when you are trying it. Once that was done and right because I had to do it at least six times. So once it was done and right, I went ahead and cut off all the excess. So when I flipped it out, there was less to lay down and I went and pressed it and then top stitched. And this is what the collar turned out to be. I was actually very happy because I thought that I was not gonna be able to get that. But if you look at the inside, it was a little crazy up by the neck but the facing looked good, which I was happy about. And now I just have to hem the sleeves and hem the bottom. To hem, I'm using a process that I see with Wendy do all the time. And basically at my longest stitch length, I am folding it in once and sewing down the hem where I surged. And then once that's done, I'm moving to a smaller stitch width and then folding that in one more time and for real stitching that down to become the permanent hem. So basically for the shoulder seams and the bottom, I flipped over once. Sewed at basically a basting stitch, however long you can get. And then I folded that over one more time and sewed at a real stitch length of like three and a half to hem it all. And here is the finished piece. I was satisfied with the length and the fit. I just wish I constructed it better with less issues so there were still some snags. So I definitely want to retry this. So that was the finished product. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be but it definitely wasn't as good as I wanted it to be. So I am classifying this as a first attempt and I would love to try and sew more button-ups in the future, maybe even next week. But with Christmas being this week, I feel like there's a lot going on. So I don't want to push myself too hard but yes I hope you guys enjoyed this video and will learn from my mistakes when cutting out the pattern, sewing it together, reading the instructions. I will say what helped me the most though was being able to finish my seams somehow whether I'd be with my serger or if you don't have a serger with a zigzag stitch and then also ironing and pressing out every seam, almost every seam allowance whether it be in the collar or the facing but being able to press that out before made it a lot easier and being able to press the shirt as it was being constructed made construction a whole lot easier. So 10 out of 10 would recommend ironing. If you guys want to stick around on my sewing journey make sure you hit that subscribe button down below. You can also follow me over on Instagram at Happily Dressed and I will see you guys in my next video. See you guys later.