In Progress: Hawaiian Shirts

  Mr. Hunting Creek loves the shirts I make for him. He gets lots of compliments and comments and he always brags that I made it custom for him. He has been asking for more shirts, and I agreed BUT he had to help me cut them out. I have both MS and arthritis, and my hands get very tired of cutting. He then said these magic words: 
 " Why don't you teach me how?  I can cut everything for you. Then you can just sew".

Like Buddy the Elf, I have favorite things and non-favorite things:

Favorite Things about Sewing
Actual Sewing of Things
Collecting Beautiful Fabrics to Make Beautiful Things
Collecting Patterns
Finishing Things, see above

Non-Favorite Things About Sewing
Winding Bobbins
Cutting Things Out
UFOs
Rework
Stress, or working on a deadline

He selected McCalls 4079, which is a great pattern with many variations and good instructions.(It is OOP but there are several other options that you could try, including Colette's Negroni and this one.)
 I have made it before, so it has already been adjusted. He then was escorted to the shirt fabric shelf and selected two tropically

themed fabrics, one of which I had purchased in the state of Hawaii, so you cannot get more authentic than that.
  I always, always buy a yard extra for shirt purposes, after an unfortunate experience with accidentally slicing something and having not enough fabric to cut another piece, leading to some very creative problem -solving that I would prefer not to repeat.(I use extra shirting scrap pieces for pocket linings, shirt collar bands, inside yokes and cuffs and boxer shorts and other uses.) The extra fabric allows me to match patterns without stress, and stress is one of those Non-Favorite sewing things that I'd like to avoid. This is supposed to be fun, after all

 Men's casual shirts are pretty easy compared to women's blouses, but I have a small quibble with the pattern envelope above. I have never ever made a shirt in three hours. Also, why on earth would you want to do that?  Today I will  wind two bobbins (because nothing is so annoying as running out of thread while topstitching) cut out the interfacing for the collars and make the collars, since that is the fussiest part, so I like to do that first.
  Tomorrow I'll sew the yokes to the front and back. Then attach the collar, sew on the sleeves, sew the side seams, hem sleeves. Thursday mark buttonholes, and sew buttonholes. Sew on buttons. Then hem. Hemming after buttons and buttonholes is something I learned to do after a sad experience where the fronts were ever so slightly off and I noticed it and then could not not notice it so the shirt had to be rehemmed. Ripping out and redoing hems is another NON FAVORITE thing, so we like to prevent that from even happening.
He wants it by Saturday. Did I mention that I hate deadlines?

UFO Sighting

Inside Out style Hawaiian Shirt

This shirt is older than my 22 year old son, yet I just finished it. How does one end up with 23 year old UFOs?
Way back in 1990,we lived in Southern California. I had a little sewing room and I would put my cut out projects in a little basket on my desk,to keep all of the pieces together until I was ready to sew them. In this basket I had a simple blouse, the Hawaiian shirt and a pink batik sundress for my daughter, then aged 5. But that Spring, Mr.Hunting Creek got a new job in Washington, DC, so we had to move. The mover people came and packed up everything, wrapping our items in copious layers of packing paper, and labeling each box with their own inscrutable codes. .They labeled boxes "Fragil" , "Dinning Room", "Book" and my favorite: "Things". When we arrived in Virginia, sewing was definitely not a priority. Also I had a new job, a five year old, and I was pregnant. The sewing projects box was neglected.
I didn't even have a sewing room. Then I had a new baby, a demanding job and there was no sewing for a while...but I missed it. I had Mr. Hunting Creek find my machine and supplies. I made Christmas Ornaments, sewing on the kitchen table. I made my daughter's First Communion Dress. The little basket of cut projects lay packed in a moving box, forgotten....for years. Fast forward to last year, when finally I had a new, improved sewing room of my own. Not in the basement, not in the kitchen, not sharing the TV Room downstairs but upstairs, next to my office. Mr. Hunting Creek found boxes in the garage full of my old patterns and my basket of projects from 1990. Just cut pattern pieces, no notes as to what pattern it was. At least I had marked the pieces. The 23 Years ago me assumed that I would remember what pattern the pieces were from and use those directions. The 23 years ago me didn't match the pocket. Could I put a shirt together without instructions? I assured Mr. Hunting Creek that when you've made one shirt, you've made them all. You know what? That's actually true.
This shirt, and the following one, count against my goals this year of both Sew a Hawaiian Shirt and Finish Something. A twofer! 

Surfer Girl Shirt

Surfer Girl Shirt sighting in the Wild

Here is a recap of my yearly goals so far:
January: Sew a scrap quilt - done!
February: Make something out of silk - done
March: Use a  border print - in progress, lost buttons, so need new ones
April: Sew a Hawaiian shirt - done - made THREE
May: Make something formal - totally flaked out on this due to lack of formal occasions
June: Make pajamas- done - made two for me, two for Mr.Hunting Creek July: Make T shirts - they are cut out but not sewn, got distracted by non-sewing life
August: Make a Baby quilt - in progress. The baby is born, so I have to finish the quilting part by the end of this month
September: Finish something -hooray! Two unfinished projects shown above, FINISHED
October: Use a Vintage pattern
November:Use a new pattern
December: Make a Holiday decoration

Seven out of nine isn't bad. I still have some August left and I already did September's. I'd like to finish the year having completed ALL of these.

What UFOs lurk in your sewing life? Does it feel like they will never be finished? Do you need to declare UFO bankruptcy and start over? Are you the kind of person who doesn't even have UFOs?

Time to Sew the Good Stuff

Is everyone else as tired of the recession as I am? It has taken the fun out of everything. My favorite Sunday morning activity is reading the New York Times, but lately the paper has shown a certain lack of ambition. All of the bad financial news must have broken their spirit. Today they suggested vacations in the United States. Whatever happened to trekking in Bhutan? To staying at the ever popular Tuscan villas? It was fun to imagine that we might do those things. It was aspirational, for Pete's sake! Don't take that away from us and start getting all practical!
In the book section there was discussion of making your own bacon (!). What's next, articles on Urban Deer Hunting? (Make Your Own Venison Bacon, shot right in your own backyard!) Will articles on weaving our own cloth be far behind? (I read that vegetable gardening and canning are hot now. Who could have predicted THAT a year ago? Although I am all in favor of growing vegetables and making jam. I do these things myself.) But I am worn out with being worried. I've had enough of that. It's been long enough and I've decided that it's time now to cheer up now. No more panic. No more gloom and doom.
Radical steps are necessary. I decide that it's time to break in to stash. It's time to sew the Good Stuff. After all, don't I deserve it? After making three shirts in a row for Mr. Hunting Creek, all with the dreaded buttonholes -which all came out perfectly after all the procrastinating - what was I afraid of? I decide to make a silk blouse. It's not practical, it's not frugal, it's not recycled or any current thifty-chic trend. And it's not for anyone but ME.
Isn't this pretty? So sweet and girly, so old fashioned, so not like anything else in my entire closet.
This silk chiffon is as impractical as it gets. I bought it from Gorgeous Fabrics a year ago and it's been waiting for its close up ever since. I think it wants to be something floaty and feminine. I'll have to search through the patterns and Burdas to find a worthy pattern.
So go ahead. Break into your stash. If you're a sewista, I know you probably have one. If you don't, then you have my encouragement to get yourself something pretty to sew for summer. It will help the economy and make you happy, which will in return make others happy and then - like magic! the recession will disappear. That's right - it's your patriotic duty!
What lovely thing will you sew for summer?

Almost Done Shirt

Do you have projects that are almost done, except for one tiny step? The step that you don't like to do?
I hate to do buttonholes, even though my Pfaff 2141 does wonderful buttonholes. All the machines I had before must have scarred me for life, because I still put off doing the buttonholes. But this shirt has been done and ready for the buttonholes for over a month, just sitting on my sewing desk, giving me the stinkeye. I don't like to start new projects until I finish the old ones, or the unfinished items get set aside out of my sight and then I never finish them. I know myself well enough to know this. I must finish this NOW or it will fall down the memory hole and one day get found in the closet of doom, never finished. It's pretty too. It is a fine Japanese cotton print and I did a nice job of matching the design, if I say so myself. Not perfect, but close enough. (Besides, trying to be perfect is just inviting insanity.) It's for Mr. Hunting Creek and he's been hinting that he'd like to wear it now that it is warm. He even wore the other shirt I made for him as a gentle reminder of how much he appreciates my handiwork. I took the shirt yesterday and remarked the buttonholes, once with a chalk pencil and also with a pin next to the mark, because the pattern is busy and the marks are hard to see. I use a very retro method to mark them - I take his old shirt that I made (those buttonholes are perfectly placed), I lay it on top, pin it in place and then mark through those buttonholes. Retro , but effective. Now all I have to do is make them, then sew on the buttons.
I'll set up the machine and do a few practice ones to get warmed up and then I'll be done. It never seems like a big deal once I start to do them and I always wonder why I put it off so long. I wish that here in Virginia they had places like those in New York where they do your buttonholes for just a few dollars. But driving to New York from here for four buttonholes might strike some people (Mr.Hunting Creek among them) as excessive.
What sewing tasks do you avoid?

Birthday Shirt Finished

With at least 2 minutes to spare. We have earned our jello shot...
We were supposed to be at the birthday party at 430p. I was sewing on the last button of the birthday shirt 5 minutes before we left (as usual, I always finish everything at the very last possible minute. I don't know how I do this. This would be a very stressful habit if I were a bomb defuser.)
Here's the shirt, modeled by the birthday boy over his sweatshirt.
It is actually warm enough today to wear it.( over 50 degrees at least)
This is a basic casual shirt pattern, but I deviated two places from the instructions. The yoke and the collar pattern pieces instruct you to place them on the lengthwise grain, but that would have made the design sideways on the collar and yoke and would have looked distracting, so I placed them on the crosswise grain instead. This made the pattern blend better.I do this all the time and it works fine. Don't be afraid of making your own grain decisions if the shirt calls for a change. The pattern is only the rough draft; you are the "decider", (if I may borrow that from W). In the past I have placed the collar and the sleeves and the yoke on the bias and all was well. They just take a bit more care so you don't stretch them. Go ahead and experiment. Nothing is going to blow up, after all.
Here's a shot of his quilt from the birthday 2 years ago. These are his favorite colors, and they all play nicely together with college pictures printed on printable fabric in the nine patches. The pictures are printed on EQ Printables and are still soft and unfaded after 2 years of use.The lap quilt is backed with dark brown minkee and is super soft.

I want to make one for myself, now that I have fulfilled my birthday obligations.
Mr. Hunting Creek is making sad faces today, because he loved DBIL's shirt and he says he doesn't have a new shirt for spring casual day. My son is also whining about the speed of my shirt output. They are under the impression that this is a sweatshop. There was almost a marital incident when it was commented that "you used to sew much faster before". You mean before I had two jobs, two kids, a house, a garden, two dogs and a husband? Those were the days...
Happy Sewing!

In The Pocket

The pockets on your shirts can be as wild and crazy or subtle as you please. You are the designer here, so you get to choose. Do you want a pocket that blends in?
You can't even see the pocket here on DBIL's shirt that I made 2 years ago - and that was my plan. The pattern on the shirt was busy enough. But maybe you want your pocket to stand out? Check out this cool pocket here. I love what they did with the stripes.
You don't have to use the pocket pattern that comes with your pattern either. I save pocket patterns (just trace one or make a template out of a file folder or template plastic) and also steal cool pockets from other patterns and RTW shirts. RTW pockets are easy to copy with a little tissue and a pencil. Just place the tissue over the pocket and rub gently along the edges - just like making a rubbing in kindergarten, remember? Pockets don't take much fabric, so you can test the effects of the different options and see what you like better. On the shirt I am making now, I planned the layout so that the state of New Mexico would be featured on the left side pocket (my brother in -law went to college in New Mexico.) I could also have fussy cut this as well, if I wanted it to stand out as a design element.
I cut out the right front of the shirt first, then the left. Wait - don't take off that pattern piece! I mark the pocket placement with tailor's tacks and any other vital markings with either snips or tailor's chalk on the wrong side.
For pocket placement, I make a tissue copy of my pocket pattern, and place it where the pocket would be on the left front.
I trace the pattern on the shirt fabric on to my tissue pocket so that I can find a match on the fabric for the pocket if I want it to match the front, then I find a spot that matches on the fabric and cut. You can see where I just made an outline of the motif that I want to find so I can match up the pocket.



Here you can see that I have found a match - this will be my pocket. It will blend right in.

If your shirt recipient is rough on pockets, consider lining or interfacing your pocket as well. You can test your options to see what you like best. It only takes a few minutes to test and after a few shirts you will know what you like.

When I used to hang out at the Hawaiian shirt designer's office, I would look at all of her shirts. She used to make all kinds of crazy shirt designs. Some would have each part of the shirt in a different tropical print. That would be fun to do. Others would have the collars and pockets and yokes in contrasting fabric. There is a lot you can do with a simple shirt to make it fun. When I lived in Hawaii I saw all kinds of beautiful shirts in all sorts of fabrics- cotton, silks, rayons and more - and the fanciest ones cost hundreds of dollars. Just go to Nordstrom and look at the Tommy Bahama shirts.(Try not to faint when you look at the tag. Because men's shirts are so EASY to make!) When you make a custom shirt as a gift you are giving something that no one can buy - love in every stitch, plus the cachet of knowing no one else will have one like yours.
Happy sewing!

Quilt, interrupted

I straightened out my sewing cave, which has me inspired to mess it up again. (The best way to restore sewing mojo is to clean house, sort fabric or clean the sewing room.) I want to make a lap quilt for myself, to keep me warm while I watch TV or read. Each of the kids has a blankie for this and I want one for myself.(Why don't I make more stuff for myself? Bad case of Mom Syndrome.) I made one last year for my brother in law with minkee as the backing and it was so cuddly and cozy I want to do mine that way too. I use the Michelangelo method of quiltmaking: take any and all fabrics that you might even remotely consider putting in your quilt on the worktable and then take away everything that doesn't look like your quilt. I found lots of fabric that fit my chocolate and blue gray color scheme, with a nice mix of lights and darks.

But then...Mr. Hunting Creek and Best Sister Ever revealed that they were planning my brother in law's birthday party and the theme was Route 66 (because all of our parties have a theme now. And every birthday is celebrated with full birthday honors. We have our standards.) I remembered that I had some Route 66 themed fabric in the linen closet/auxilary fabric storage zone. So I spent Saturday afternoon searching through the three containers of fabric there, digging for it. I found stuff I had never even seen before. (I swear someone sneaks fabric in there while I'm not looking)
And all the stars were in alignment, because I found it AND my favorite shirt pattern.
Butterick 3777 from 1986. I have made this many times and I know the pattern by heart. It's out of print, but McCalls 4581 would be a good substitute. I've made many men's shirts before. Backstory for Lindsay T: I learned how to sew when I was a kid. Back then we took sewing in high school, at least the girls did (the boys took auto shop), but I knew how to sew before I ever took sewing in school. I had learned from friends, my mom, my grandmother and, as luck would have it, the lady next door to my parent's office. I used to work for my parents in the summers, and next door to their office in the business park was a woman who manufactured Hawaiian shirts and sold them in the boutiques in Laguna Beach and other places along the coast. I used to hang out there and she taught me how to make shirts.

The first thing you want to do is ignore their layout. If you are using a fabric that has a one way design or a pattern that must be matched, you have to take matters into your own hands and redo the layout to get the best use of the design on the most visible parts of the shirt. So take your time and look carefully at the pattern and the fabric and find the best arrangement. The first thing I do is cut out one side of the front, then carefully search the fabric for the best match for the other side. I fold back the facing and move it around until I find the best match.

I stuck the scissors underneath so you could see the top piece. (don't forget that the second front pattern piece is reversed.)See how it disappears? That's the best spot. After I cut the second front, I cut out all of the other pieces, remembering to keep the design all pointing the same way. I always buy extra fabric for shirts. I do NOT understand people who tell the cutting lady, "I'll have 1 7/8th yard, please." I always want to take them aside and say, "Do you never make a cutting mistake? Do you never match a design? Are you NUTS?" But I restrain myself. I always buy at least a half yard extra of fabric. One, it shrinks when prewashed, and two, I like to match the design and that gives me a little wiggle room. If the fabric has a really large repeat I might buy a whole yard extra.
Tonight I cut out the birthday shirt, and all this week I'll sew a little bit at a time. I'll try to take pictures at the tricky parts. If you are a shirt newbie and didn't get to hang out in a Hawaiian shirt factory as a teen, I strongly recomment David Page Coffin's Shirtmaking book. He has lots of great construction tips.(Check out his video on YouTube)But honestly, everything I know about shirtmaking, I learned back in 1974, in a business park mini factory on on Crown Valley Parkway. The quilt is still in its uncut phase. To be continued....
Happy Sewing!