There are a number of things that bother me about schools these days, but dress codes are at the top of my list to drive me into fits of rage. A number of school districts impose very gender-biased restrictions on attire. Even on Kindergarten-aged children, spaghetti straps are a no-go and straps must be as thick as three fingers side-by-side. You can imagine that makes it difficult to shop when you live in a state that’s routinely in the 90-105F range starting as early as April. I couldn’t find anything that wouldn’t force the school to shoo my daughter home in a sweatshirt or dirty old gym shirt, so I made my own.
Close up of the box pleat
The shirt features a box pleat neckline, but only on the front portion. It sports an a-line frame and button loop closure in the back. The sleeves I added are merely flutter sleeves — gathered up just to give us that perfect 3-finger wide compliance. I somewhat regret the decision to make the neckline bound by bias tape, but I found it was more old-fashioned to use facings. The only facing that I have is small and it is to secure the loop and button in the back. I may rethink this as I head into the Winter months and convert this into a long-sleeved blouse. If I were to post the pattern, it would be fairly silly of me to tell people to find the center back and cut 4″ down the center… even with a guide printed on paper, that just seems weird as a construction step, but it does work and it does create stable, gorgeous results for the back of the shirt!
Up close on the neckline
Note that this is just my first post, so I will be making a long-sleeved version of this soon and provide construction steps along the way! Sadly, I took these pictures months ago, so I’m a little behind 🙂
