Sunday, October 16, 2011

For the man of the house

The spouse came back from a business trip that involved lots of fieldwork, testing wireless equipment, and he came back grumbling about the fit of the shirts he'd packed.  Wanted to know if i could make him some that would work better.

Now, i could probably take a pattern from one of his existing shirts and then adjust it to remedy the fitting issues, but it would be a big pain in the butt.  So i started watching for a pattern to use as a starting place, which would eliminate the first step, and we could move along to adjusting for fit.  I just got a hefty batch of 1940s menswear patterns, and i've held this one back for the spouse:

It's got the essential characteristics: button front, chest pockets, long sleeves with cuffs - which he will always wear rolled up, but which must be long and not short... (shrug - guess we all have our quirks).  I like the way the pleats are done in the back - there's no shoulder yoke, but those reinforcements where the pleats release are just cool, and it'll add the little bit of fullness you want across the back of a work shirt.  The pattern calls for machine stitching a triangle to anchor the pleat, but i'm wondering if a hand-worked tack might not be even more interesting... have to scratch my head about that one a bit, because it might not be large enough to keep the folds of the pleat from rolling up uncomfortably inside the shirt.

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