Happy Birthday, Cheyenne!

The Cheyenne Tunic by Hey June Patterns turns 1 (well, on Sunday, to be exact, but that’s close enough…) and is now available in German, too!

The Cheyenne was the first pattern I tested, and I remember being so excited that I barely could sleep after seeing Adrianna’s email. but more on that on Sunday – because that’s not just the Cheyenne’s first birthday, but my first blog birthday, too!

I loved this pattern while testing it and wanted to make many more Cheyennes right away. And of course I didn’t get around to making them! So when Annika from Näh-Connection decided to translate the Cheyenne into German, I finally had a good reason for making another one.

The first two versions I made had a half placket and a mandarin type of collar, so this time I decided to make view A with a full placket and a real collar. I also decided to go with long sleeves and omitted the sleeve taps.

The fabric I used is flannel plaid from Indiesew that I bought about a year ago (I think it was sold out within 10 minutes or so!), actually with the intention of making another Cheyenne. And flannel just screams to be made into a ‘real’ shirt with button placket, collar and cuffed sleeves, doesn’t it?

As a little twist I decided to go for pearl snaps instead of real buttons. I wanted to use white pearl snaps at first, but had these black ones in my stash and decided to go with black instead. And a red snap at the top. I didn’t have enough of these red snaps to use them for the whole shirt, but I love the little accent!

The snaps were also the reason why I didn’t add taps to the sleeves. Snap fasteners just don’t work really well with sleeve taps… and I’ll probably wear the sleeves down most of the time anyway.

I knew I wouldn’t have any problems with the fit of the Cheyenne or with sewing it, and sewing with (this particular) flannel was super easy, too. It had just enough stretch to it to sew up easily, without stretching out in every direction. Cutting the plaid took a little time, since I wanted everything to match up perfectly and cut the back yoke, the placket, the sleeve plackets and the pocket on the bias.

The plaid feels *nearly* the same on the right and wrong sides  but the right side is a little bit softer.

After sewing and topstitching the yoke and sewing together the front and back, (but luckily before attaching the sleeves!) I realized I had managed to end up with the wrong side of the back on the outside. As a result I had to unpick the back, turn it and attach it again by topstitching through both yokes and the back at the same time. Luckily it doesn’t show!

Ad you can see, I managed to attach my pocket a little bit skew, but unbelievably enough I couldn’t find any of my seam rippers before I had to take my pics (and it was Sunday…). So here you go, photos with a skew pocket, fixed after taking the photos.

But back to the German translation of the Cheyenne: Annika from Näh-Connection didn’t just translate the Cheyenne, but three other shirt patterns, too! There’s the Fairfield Button Up from Thread Theory for men, the Laramie (in English here) from Hey June for Teens, and the Bookworm Button Up from Blank Slate Patterns for children. So, German speakers, you’ve got the whole family covered!

Head over to the Näh-Connection blog to see the other shirt makes and to buy your copy of the Cheyenne (or all of the shirts??). And for the English speakers: you can buy your copy of the Cheyenne over here!

–  This blog post contains affiliate links to the Hey June store – because Adrianna’s patterns are seriously awesome! However, all oponions are, as always, my own. This post is linked to the German blogger party RUMS. –