In this article, I shall describe the making of the shitagi, the Japanese under armour shirt.
Here's the pattern for the shitagi. Remember, I'm skipping steps you learned making the fundoshi,
I make the shitagi 4 feet long. On me, that hangs to just above my knees. The neck hole I make 6" across, because that fits me well enough. Your size may vary.
And here's the pieces laid out. Sleeves on the left, body in the middle, and lapel on the right.
I've folded the body in half along the shoulder line, and put a pin in. This marks where the center of the sleeve goes.
And I fold the sleeve in half along its shoulder line, and put a pin there, too. Notice that
the pin is put in the cut side, not the selvege side of the sleeve. By putting the seam on
the cut side, there's no need to hem the sleeve.
Now open up the body and the sleeve, and match the edges and pins.
I've put one pin in the middle of the sleeve and body, and put another pin at the right end of the sleeve, in about a quarter inch from the end. You may put more pins in if you want, but it's a straight seam, so I don't.
Here's I'm just starting to sew the sleeve to the body. Notice that I start a little ways down from the pin, then backstitch backwards to the pin. We'll need that little bit of space when we sew the underarm. Also notice that I just use the edge of the presser foot as my guide. You can have wider seams if you want, but it's not necessary.
And here we've done the backstitching, and we'll sew the whole seam now.
At the end of the arm seam, we also leave aobut a quarter inch.
Here it is with both sleeves sewn on. Notice that both sleeves are sewn to the same side of the body. This is important, and you'll kick yourself if you do it the other way, because you'll have to take one sleeve off and put it back on the right way. Check before you sew!
And here it is opened up.
Keeping the right sides together, match up an underarm seam by matching the end of the sleeve, the underarm, and the side at the hem. Pin and sew that seam.
Sew the other underarm seam, and turn the shitagi right side out.
We now fold the lapel in half the long way, and iron it.
Opeining the lapel up, we fold the long edges into the center...
Fold in half along the center creas, and iron it again. I've opened it up so we can see how it's folded.
Fold in half and put a pin in for marking.
Lay out the body of the shitagi, right side up, so that we can get to the neck hole.
Using the pin as a guide, pin the center of the lapel to the center back of the neck hole.
Now pin around the neck.
Put as many pins along the rest of the lapel as you need to sew it on. Notice that the last pin is not quite at the end of the lapel.
Fold each end of the lapel inward a half inch or so...
And sew the end of each lapel closed.
Sew the lapel to the body. Here we're sewing around the neck. Notice that the neck is pulled straight for this. That's why we used so namy pins.
And with the pins removed from the lapel, we're almost finished.
Hem around the bottom, remembering to begin at the end of the lapels, and you're done!