I bought the Recital Shirt pattern a while back in one of Liesl + Co.’s great periodic sales and thought of it immediately when I was putting together plans for my #thegreatmodulesewalong capsule wardrobe. Masha, the editor of the Oliver + S blog, reached out to ask if I’d be interested in writing a post about how I usually go about fitting myself for a series she’s running (well worth a read!) around the same time and so I mentioned this project and she thought it would be a good one. It wasn’t until I actually got down to it that I remembered it had princess seams, which are actually not something I’ve worked with too much! Still, I went ahead with the post and you can read all about my fitting process in the resulting post over on their blog.

Since I’ve gone into so much detail over there, I’m going to pretty much skip it here and just give a short general review of the shirt. The Liesl +Co. Recital Shirt is described as “a princess-seamed blouse (that) includes lots of elegant details and options. In addition to the separate pattern pieces for A/B, C, and D cup sizes, it includes a tower sleeve placket, sleeve cuffs, and a semi-fitted back with darts. View A features a band collar with ruffle trim and a continuous (cut-on) placket. View B includes a pleated tuxedo-style front with separate (set-in) front placket and tuxedo collar.”

I really was drawn to the pleated front initially, but I thought it would get lost in my print somewhat, so instead I plumped for View A, which has the distinctive frilly collar and the cut-on front placket. It was also my first time ever sewing a sleeve placket. I don’t quite know how that could be, but my husband doesn’t really wear long-sleeved shirts and I seem not to have made one for myself with a placket either! As per the post I wrote for Liesl, I made a muslin with the 14D, for which my measurements matched very closely and then a few adjustments from there to get a very decent fit. The shirt is not intended to be very form-fitting and the result is extremely comfortable.

I used a Japanese black and white lawn that I bought from Miss Matatabi a few years ago. It’s a beautiful weight and the saturation of the colour is excellent, but, like many black and/or white garments, it’s a little difficult to photograph. With the monochromatic colour scheme and the high collar, I was picturing something a little Victorian-looking and I rather like the result!

Liesl’s instructions are excellent as always, particularly with the aforementioned sleeve placket construction. It really was painless! I also liked how the ruffle collar was formed – it feels substantial and a real design feature – a floppy collar was not the look I was after. The shirt is very generous in length and this is probably the only thing I would change next time – it’s possibly just a tad long for my own tastes. The shaping is lovely though and it’s finished beautifully.

Overall, this is a really comfortable, but classy shirt. I know that the Classic Shirt (for which I also have the pattern) is drafted from the same block, so I am excited to make that one up too, given that I’ve already done all the muslining work here. Before that though, I have to say I’m still drawn to the other view of this with the pleated front and would love to make that in a bold solid – an emerald green maybe. Choice, choices! Have you made either of these? What did you think?