Man-sewing

I promised I would show off some of my Christmas man-sewing, and unfortunately this is the best I could do. I really wanted to get these modelled, but DH was utterly non-cooperative. Not to mention he is rarely home during daylight hours. So, here is the shirt and the pj pants I sewed up for him, laying sadly on a table in poor light. I copied the tee off a well-fitting but easily stretched out Gap shirt he has. I used a cotton jersey with a leetle bit of lycra in it, like 3%. That way it doesn't stretch out of shape as the day wears on. I found it at a local fabric chain we have here, Yardage Town. It's a weird store, lemme tell you, but nevertheless a great resource for t-shirt knits. :) The pants are jury-rigged from an old Butterick pattern and some pj pants he already owns, and I used some awful flannel from Joanns. Seriously, it is pilly with snags, but wth, they're pj pants, yeah?


Check out the REAL fly front thingee! (As always, you can click on my pics to see them full size.) I mean, it's not like it has a zipper, but I did do a real buttonhole and everything. I don't think most guys use the fly openings on their boxers/pants, but I think it gives a real manly look to them, so this time I went for it. Now they no longer say, "these pants are a metaphor for my wife suppressing my man bits as she didn't even include a way for them to escape," but rather, "look how much my wife respects my manhood, she even stitched around an opening for it."


I now realize I pulled the neckline ribbing slightly too tight, but he hasn't seemed to notice. I do like how the coverstitching looks around the neck, though.


I used the widest stitch on my CP1000 for all the topstitching, as I notice that's what they do in rtw. Women's garments tend to have less topstitching and narrower coverstitching. The guys' stuff has tons of topstitching and uses wider coverstitching and/or triple stitching. Why, I have no idea. I can't come up with a metaphor.


The Gap t-shirt I knocked off had wide, self-fabric cuffs instead of hems on the sleeves. I noticed that the long sleeve shirts that stretch out the worst on my husband have regular hems on the sleeves, not cuffs, so I thought this was a brilliant idea. Nevermind that the Gap shirt was made out of crappy fabric so the cuffs still stretched out, the principal was still good. Apparently it's important to guys to have the fabric nice and fitted around their wrists? Sort of like the sleeve cuffs dress shirts, I suppose.


I am learning so much about, er, well, men's t-shirts? Button-fly underwear? Heck, it's not like I'm tailoring suits here. But, it's a start, and he loves, loves this shirt. He really wants me to make more. So, more man-sewing to come this year!