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?

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?

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!