Sewing instructor Sandra Miller demonstrates how to make a camp shirt using the techniques learned from making a men’s style shirt in this episode of The Perfect Blouse series. She uses the Cutting Line Designs blouse: Easy. Ageless. Cool. However, this process can be used on many other shirt patterns.

Learn camp shirt details

The camp shirt has similar features to those in View A of The Blouse Perfected, the pattern used throughout this series to show shirt-making techniques.

For example, the camp shirt has set in sleeves, a clean-finished hem, side seams that turn into a side vent with mitered corners, and a similar collar construction to the View A blouse.

Construction of the neckline is slightly different, however. First, attach the collar’s curved neckline edge to the round neck edge. Sandra shows how to pin the opposing edges at the neckline stitching line.

Then baste the collar in place.

Finish off the camp shirt’s neck edges with the pattern’s two facing pieces. Place them right side down on top of the basted collar. Stitch from the hem edge and up the shirt front, pivoting at the neck edge and stitching all the way around the neck and down the other front side. Note, there is no collar band for the camp shirt.

Sew, grade, clip, and turn the neckline

Next, grade the seam allowances so the shortest allowance is on the facing and the longest allowance layer is on the garment neck edge.

Clip the seam allowances at an angle. Make clips about an inch apart on only two edges all the way around the neck edges. Turn the garment around and clip the other two seam allowances in the other direction at about 1-inch intervals. Be sure to stagger the second set of…