The last trip to the craft thrift store saw me bring home an obnoxious doll print and a madras that coordinates so incredibly well with that doll print that I strongly suspect they were donated from the same stash. I put them together for another McCall's 6613 (with all my usual deviations from the pattern as given.)
When I say a print is obnoxious, I mean it. I am also cackling gleefully while saying it.
Eleven years ago, I made a shirt that mixed a floral and a leopard print. It was very cute, but I changed size and shape enough that it no longer fit, and I gave it away.
And now I've made another version!
It is less serious and more campy, and I am very happy with it.
A friend thrifted a big bold piece of PeterMax-inspired fabric, and later surprised me with it.
The selvedge says Peter Pan Fabrics, but, given that Peter Pan Fabrics was around from the 1940s to the early 2000s and pretty much never changed the way they put their name in their (unlicensed print) selvedges, I am genuinely unsure if the fabric really is from the late 1960s/early 1970s, or if it's from the late 1990s revival of that groovy era aesthetic.
Either way, it's vintage, right?
After receiving the surprise package containing this fabric, I pretty quickly thought it would be a lot of fun to make it into a button up dress shirt.
I did not so quickly get around to making it, but, now I have.
It could never have been anything but ridiculous.
The previous project was a more wearable shirt made from the remnants of a more ridiculous shirt, and this one is, too.
The ridiculous shirt project this time was the peter pan collar trapeze shirt I made at the end of last year; the more wearable shirt is once again the heavily hacked Burda 7831, the no darts version.
It is, predictably, a very loud shirt.
In fall of 2023, I made a ridiculously frilly shirt with some delicate swiss dot cotton I happened to find in the Walmart mill end precuts bins. There was a decent amount of the fabric left, and I figured I'd make a much more plain shirt from it (although I'm not sure if I'd say "more practical," because there's nothing practical about the idea of me trying to wear white without getting it stained and grungy.)
Then, last September, I made a vest and vaguely coordinating skirt and immediately knew I wanted to make the basic swiss dot shirt to go with them. Nine months later, I finally have!
I don't feel like there's much to say about this--it's the kind of basic piece that I tend to skip making, no matter how useful I know it will ultimately be, and that basic quality also means it feels like there's not much to stand out about its creation.
I had just enough of the thin black cotton??? left to squeeze out a heavily modified Burda7831, this time using the additional modification of omitting the darts, which I first tried last fall. Since I was doing pattern matching on that one, I did one more modification to omit the front band, but I made marks on my front pattern piece so I'd know where to cut for a band option, and that's what I did here.
It worked out pretty well.
I made a shirt for The Child in 2018, from a Robert Kaufman tossed money print. The shirt has long since been outgrown, but still hangs in the closet. I was going through all of the too-small clothes that The Child will not let go of, and, when I got to that one, a certain wistfulness was expressed by said Child.
I hopped on the Joann site and saw that they did still have it in stock! And on deep sale! (This was in December, when everything is traditionally on deep sale.) I ordered enough to make a long sleeve shirt in The Child's current size, and in two weeks, the order...got cancelled due to lack of stock.
The Child was disappointed, although it was mixed with the habitual sarcasm, so I didn't worry too much about not being able to get it.
I went to a Joann on Sunday for something else (which they did not have, despite the site saying they did **Edit, much later: this was before we knew that Joann would soon be no more), and checked the novelty print cottons--there was a little of the money print left in stock in the store! Not much, though--1.6 yards, according to the cutting ticket. It was at a slight discount, and I got another 10% off for finishing off the bolt, so that was nice.
I got home and serged the ends and added it to a load of laundry. I set about cutting it that night, and was able to squeeze almost all of the pieces for a short sleeve version from it, needing only a bit of another fabric for the inside of the back yoke.
I sewed it completely Monday, and not in a rush.
...which is something I probably never thought I would be able to do, if asked around the time I made the first shirt from this print.
Finally finished! I took the first photo of this project
on October 7. I finished it on October 27. That's nearly three weeks. The lined patchwork blazer I made last year, using a pattern that was entirely new to me, took five days total. And the first Halloween patchwork project I did was acknowledged as a distraction tactic (and also took five days.) This year's project did not distract from...potential upcoming events...and in fact that uncertainty is probably what dragged this project out for so long.
But it's done! And it's cute!
Still working toward making this year's Halloween Patchwork Project, and I decided I do not want to make darts in this potential shirt, especially not the extremely deep darts of the proper...well...modified Burda7831 that I usually use. So! Time for more modification!
I traced the front pattern piece and swung the dart roughly closed, then used the side of the back piece to flatten out the front of the side a little. I decided to also modify the front edge to allow for no exposed band (because I learned from the mistake I made in that direction), as well as leaving marks on the center edge of the pattern so I could still fold it appropriately if I do want to make "band: yes; darts: no" versions in the future.
I started laying out the patchwork pieces, then had the thought that I really should test these changes before committing to cutting into the not-yet-constructed patchwork. I poked into my fabric stash and found a small amount of a print that I had, for years, thought would make a nice shirt, but the colors in it always had me passing over it for other prints. Well! Now would be its time.
I easily cut everything from the limited yardage, including re-cutting a sleeve because the first one had a small stain and the way the print was going to repeat around the shoulder seam did not make me happy, especially after I took the time to pattern match across the front opening. Construction was fast and easy and lengthily interrupted by my period and 'going someplace' and the weather turning abruptly cool, which did not encourage the idea of a short sleeve cotton shirt, so it took a while to actually make. But, made it is!
It's another McCall's 6613, again modified and all directions ignored, and again in an obnoxious print for The Child.
Ages ago, I thrifted a length of a very sweet vintage floral print. I used some of it for doll clothes--honestly, I figured I'd only ever use it for doll clothes.
Until, of course, I decided I wanted to use it for another modified Burda 7831. There was about a yard and a quarter, which would have been plenty of fabric if it had been 45". However, I knew it was vintage because it was 36".
I am, of course, stubborn. I got the shirt I wanted out of it.
With only a small amount of improvisation necessary.
Since I have black thread in the serger, I am making an effort to sew dark fabrics. I chose a black and white acanthus scroll print and wanted to make yet another button up shirt. I had a yard of it, so I figured I'd once again use the hacked Burda 7831. I've made shirts from 7831 and a yard of fabric plus a bit more fabric for contrast on the front bands and collar assembly.
But.
I just didn't want to do contrasts this time.
I thought a but and realized I could do a variation...without the collar.
I borrowed the scoop neck shape from the fake McCall's 8197 variation of Burda 6401 and confidently cut the front and back, a bit less confidently cutting the sleeves and facings, and then hoping I could get enough length to make the front bands. I did!
And yes I realize the pattern is busy enough to hide anything like a detail this shirt may have.
Nearly ten years a go, I made a cute little shirt that mixed a floral and leopard print. Alas, "little" is more than a term of endearment and I let it go about five years ago, when I finally accepted I was not the size I used to be.
A few years after I made the floral and leopard shirt, I made a spoopy spiders and leopard shirt for a friend.
I decided it was finally time to make an entire shirt from what I had left.
Untold years ago, I bought a quarter yard of an orange jack'o'lantern on white ground Halloween print from Joann; I probably figured I'd use it for doll clothes. But. I stopped sewing doll clothes for sale so often. And when I thought of using it for something for me? Well, with it being orange on white, it definitely had marks against it.
A few years ago, I got the idea of overdying it, to make the white pink. I finally did that a few weeks ago, and then I was determined to finally use it for something.
I checked the stash and juggled the length limits and ended up with this
Another shirt for the kiddo--not quite as straightforward this time, because I had slightly limited yardage...because I made a shirt for him from the same fabric about twelve years ago
Then:
Now:
Faux Nineties, Veritable Wax Print
Or, at least, so its says. I think it may be a screen print, because there is a noticeable difference between the front and the back of the print, although it does take some squinting to see.
Overall, though, I think it passes as much for a late era Memphis/early era Factory Pomo style of print, so that it reads as more of a 1990s Throwback design than a wax print (real or not)
I cut sleeves from spiderweb lace for the snail shirt, but decided not to use them on that shirt. This left me with spiderweb sleeves to use elsewhere
I had some fabric that I had bought as a clearance bolt--I thought it was something I got when the local Hancock Fabrics went out of business in 2007, but it's not in my photos from then. I did use some of it in a project photographed in 2013, but, beyond that, all I really know is that I'd had it for a long time, and I originally had a lot of it.
I recently decided it would be good for a shirt. But...long sleeve or short sleeve?
I decided on long sleeve, grabbed McCall's 6613, and got to work.
