it started with a shirt

A few weeks ago my husband said he wanted to order a custom made shirt. He already has a few, so this wasn't an 'out of the blue' idea. However, they can be somewhat expensive. So, I got to thinking... why pay someone else to make his shirts? I could do it! I mean, I thought I could do it. I'd have to practice for a while, get back into the swing of sewing, make a couple of 'samples'. But this is something I could do!

A bit of savvy searching on the interwebs about making shirts brought me to an awesome blog called Male Pattern Boldness. Peter is this guy in NYC who bought his very first sewing machine in 2009 and today makes all my own clothes using vintage patterns and vintage sewing machines. Heck, I've been sewing on and off for years. If he could make a shirt, so could I!

More searching brought me to a blog called Macaroni & Cheese, written by my dear friend Jacki. Among all her sewing projects for herself and the kids, she had also been making shirts for her husband. Better yet, she had blogged about it! She mentioned Kwik Sew 3422. I checked it out and thought it was something I could manage. Off to the store I went.

first fitting, however the shirt is clearly not for her.

I bought the pattern and some sample shirting fabric in a nice shade of blue to practice. Ugh... the first time of making anything takes me sooooo much time. And it didn't help that when I wasn't working on it I was reading all I could about shirt construction and sewing techniques. Several times I tore apart what I had done the day before just to do it another way. Remember, I have a healthy working relationship with my seam ripper. ;-)

It took a couple of days, but I finally got the first shirt together. However, I already want to make several changes in the construction of the next one.