Heat Of The Summer Shirt

It was mania again. I was only passing through the fabric selection at the craft shop and this fabric jumped out at me, grabbed me by the neck and demanded that I buy a couple of yards. Could I resist? Luckily, when I got home I dug this pattern out of my stash (purchased last month at the thrift store for a whopping 10 cents) after contemplating over dinner what the best use for this cool fabric would be. By 2:00am the next morning this shirt was born.


I tried out a few alterations to bring the style up-to-date a bit. First, I lengthened it about 2 inches total so it would look nice with the modern cargo pants that I found to match. I left the bottom 1 1/2" of each side seam open and did a little decorative double top stitching around them in orange thread as well as up the sides and around the sleeve seams. The pocket has tapered corners, unlike what was called for in the pattern, and the top stitching on this was done in black rather and the bright orange.




My favorite part of making this shirt is that I am trying out new seam finishing techniques. I took the relatively simple route with this shirt and after cutting them with the pinking sheers I just ran a straight seam halfway in-between the finished seam and raw edge of each side.

This last photo is to show the very cool hemp/chainmail necklace that my dear husband made to match the shirt. Isn't he lovely and talented?