I’ve been steadily working on my Simplicity Sewing Challenge makes, and tackled the dreaded buttonholes over the weekend…. much to my amazement, the gingham fabric I chose was a dream to sew! There were no ‘birds nests’ of thread and the sewing machine didn’t try eating the fabric through the bobbin either!
The fabric is a 1″ Check Corded Gingham from Minerva Crafts which works really well. I will admit I didn’t even attempt to match the checks on the seams, but then when you look at Dad’s ready-to-wear shirts, very few of them have matching patterns anyway. I did attempt to get the front checks to line up, but as you can see they were quite a bit off…. but that makes for a more unique looking shirt, right?
I did make a couple of alterations to the pattern; dad’s not all that tall, so I had to take out some of the length. In doing so, I realised I could actually get away with using one less button. As this is going to be a casual-wear shirt, I also left out the button on the collar. Dad doesn’t like to have the top button done up anyway, so there really wasn’t much point in adding one in just for show!
I think it passes the “dad test” – after posing for these photos, he didn’t want to change back out of the shirt, so I think he approves.