Déjà vu - shirts for Mike

Do you recall last year I sewed my D Mike a number of shirts?  Mike does, it cost him the promise and purchase of a beautiful handbag for me ha ha.  Well he has worn them for work (a testament that he likes them) and nearly a year later, I decided that he really did need some new shirts.

When we split our living arrangements, half in London/half in our little cottage, I already decided that I wanted to have a small sewing area so I could sew simple projects during the week.  I purchased one of the small Horn sewing cabinets from ebay which fits in between a radiator and a large storage unit, that when pulled out just fits behind our sofa giving me enough room to set up a chair and the ironing board.  There is a total sewing space of approximately 2.5' x 8', the light is terrible, but it is still a sewing space.

Oh how we take for granted our normal sewing spaces, which for me in my cottage, is a large room upstairs formerly occupied by my son who is at University.

Mike likes a monogram on his shirts, so this requires me to cut the shirt out at the cottage (saving me the mess of cutting out in the flat), sew the cuff pieces together and then embroider the monogram on the cuffs.  I also took advantage of making the collar up and add a collar stay which I have blogged about previously here, and then packed all the components into a zip-lock bag and brought it up to London.

I have my original Viking Emerald sewing machine here, it doesn't have the flair of my lovely Bernina 440 but it does all the basic stuff, which on the whole should be enough.  I have a few pins, a couple of reels of thread, scissors, unpicking tool, tape measure etc, but of course the things we take for granted, that I just reach out for, are not here.  My pressing ham and sleeve roll would have been really handy last night and when I went to sew the flat felled seams for the shirt, I realised I didn't have a special foot, so just folded the fabric under on the final seam by hand.  Now this begs the question do I buy these particular things just for use here??????

Still, I have made good progress with Mike's shirt which is very satisfying leaving me with the hems, sleeve and side seams to be sewn and the buttonholes to be made.  Hopefully I will be able to do these tonight and then Mike might have a new shirt to wear to work tomorrow.

All being well, I'll update you later with a finished shirt (fingers crossed).  Catch you later............