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Using a Different Sleeve in Your Garment
Have you ever had a favorite sleeve - and a favorite body to a garment - but they were not the same pattern? Sometimes you can measure the armhole of the garment and compare the measurements to your sleeve. If the measurements are the same, the sleeve will fit the space. However, although it may fit, it was not designed for that particular garment and it may not look as well as you wish it did.
-- The Shirt Club Patterns (part of the entire Brensan Studios line) is designed to give you that flexibility. ALL of the Shirt Club Patterns are designed specifically so you can mix and match - no measuring - no wondering - no problems.
-- I would advise you to start with one of the basic styles (Basic Long Sleeve Shirt is perfect) and use this first pattern to perfect your fit -- because once you've perfected your fit with one of the Shirt Club Patterns, you would always make the same pattern modifications to all other patterns within the Shirt Club line. Fit once - then it's off to having fun!

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The Joy of Using Cotton Batiste
Cotton Bastiste is one of my favorite supplies. Yes, I said supply :-) While it is a fabric - and a fabulous one in it's own right, it makes a very nice underlining for many fabrics. It is very lightweight, breathes and will greatly reduce the amount of wrinkles in the upper (fashion) fabric. You can make a beautiful dress blouse from Batiste such as the white blouse pictured. There are several grades of Batiste. At the upper end, there is very fine/smooth batiste (sometimes called Swiss Batiste) which is commonly used for heirloom sewing (this will run close to $20.00/yard). At the opposite end of the spectrum, you can find very inexpensive batiste around $4.00/yd - this inexpensive version is a looser weave, shrinks quite a bit more and does not lend quite the support of the mid-grade - my personal favorite. A good quality, functional batiste will run between $6.00 and $7.00 a yard.
-- One on my favorite tricks is to skip the facings on a blouse and line the entire garment with Batiste. If you have buttons, you may need to reinforce the buttonhole and button area, but the batiste makes a wonderful, lightweight lining - and it makes the project go faster, too - always a plus!
The garment shown is a mix of 2 patterns from the Shirt Club Patterns. The sleeves are from the Romantica (I added elastic at the union point of the sleeve and the flute. The body is the Barcelona Blouse. I modified Barcelona collar by rounding the collar (removing the points) and adding a 3/4" ruffle on the entire edge of the collar.

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