The Birthday Shirt (and my 2018 sewing resolutions)

Happy new year! It's back to reality for me today after all the Christmas celebrating (and eating), and I've got a renewed focus on stitching and blogging for 2018. I was pretty lax with writing about things I had made during the second half of last year. As a result, there are lots of projects that I haven't blogged about yet. I spent November and December in a blur of Christmas present making, and didn't even stop to take photos, so I'm starting this year with a project I made back in late October. 

Gareth had a big birthday back in November (6 weeks after mine) and we bought each other a trip to Berlin to celebrate. I wanted to make him something special and landed on the idea of printing fabric with his DJ logo (His moniker is CheekyDJ).  I had seen other people share pics of fabric they had printed using various websites and found the Prinfab website following an online recommendation. The site was really easy to use and I was delighted with the quality of the fabric when it arrived. 

I opted for a negroni shirt for him as the fit and style is similar to shirts he has bought previously and he still wears the whale print one I made earlier in the year. I'd forgotten quite how much work is involved in making a shirt, but it is really satisfying. As I have now made this a couple of times, I found it easier than before, but there are a lot of steps and techniques so it was still a time-consuming project. 

The birthday boy was very pleased with his shirt and wore it when we went out for a special meal in Berlin. It was pretty much the trendiest restaurant I have ever been to, so I was gobsmacked when the waitress said that she liked Gareth's shirt. When he said I'd made it, she asked me if I was a fashion designer - best compliment EVER!

I've signed up for the #makenine2018 challenge in an attempt to push myself further and also to step out of my comfort zone, both in terms of sewing and style. I will update my progress on here. 

Happy Father's Day - a dad-style retro Hawaiian shirt

With Father's Day coming up, I struggled to think of something to make for Dad. My inspiration came from Gareth when I was sorting through my fabric stash and he saw some of the fabric I bought on my trip to Manila back in January. He commented that it was really retro and would make an awesome shirt. I remembered this and decided to use it to make a Hawaiian style Negroni shirt for him. Dad spends a lot of time on holiday and already has a few Hawaiian shirts that he takes with him, so this seemed like an excellent idea. 

I only just managed to cut the shirt out because the fabric has a border print and I didn't have much. I had to make the inside back yoke in a contrasting fabric. I also cut it out a size larger than I would normally do, as I think that style of shirt should be worn bigger. When I made a Negroni for Gareth earlier in the year, it took ages and I was worried about finishing this on time. However, the short-sleeved version is so much quicker - I hadn't taken into account just how fiddly it is doing the cuffs and openings on the long-sleeved one. This went pretty much without a hitch, or so I thought. When Dad tried it on, he struggled to do up the buttons because I had sewn them on the wrong side  out of habit!  It still looks pretty awesome though - Happy Father's Day Dad, hope you had a great day xxx