When I found McCall's 7542 (not sure why the envelope has a different number, by the way) I knew it would hit the mark for me. I chose an organic cotton from Cloud 9 fabrics and decided to borrow the cold-shoulder trend from this year and alter the pattern a bit. 

*Insert blank stare.*

I need some COLOR in my life. 

Pantone's color of the year is a bright green called greenery, and while it's not a color I personally think looks good on me, I love the colors that pair with it. I do not like that Marsala color that was (and still is) so popular, so this 'greenery' is a much welcomed change. 

I'm not sure if I'm just maturing (and hence becoming more set in my ways), or if today's ready-to-wear clothing (at least those I can afford) really is declining in style and quality. Either way, I have been having such a hard time finding clothing in stores that I love. It's either boring, that marsala color I don't like, or it's polyester...all of which are automatic no's for me. I do love the cold-shoulder, bell sleeve, and lace-up trends and I was able to combine two of them in this shirt. 

Alterations I made to this shirt: removed top part of sleeve pattern to create cold-shoulder openings, skipped the zipper and added a tie & keyhole instead, sewed a slightly smaller 1" hem (1 1/4 recommended), hemmed the sleeves instead of cutting them on the fold.

On the inside: neck edge faced, all seams (except lower-sleeve), finished with flat fell seams & top stitched, lower-sleeve (where the lower edge of sleeve attaches to the bell) seam allowance was pressed down and sewed 1/2 from seam. A flat fell seam was going to be too hard to accomplish on the lower sleeve seam on both sides of the seam with the box pleats, but because of how I finished it, it is fraying a bit. I think I'll trim the allowance all the way back to the seam to prevent that.