I'm gonna tell you about my Daddy Dearest. The big T, Father Christmas, Captain Birdseye etc etc. Last year I got it into my head that I wanted to make him a shirt. He's an ex-sailor (old sailors don't die they just get a little dinghy) so I wanted it to be nautical.
This was the result.
Look at this pocket. Look at it! Look at the lovely top stitching. I am still now impressed when I can make a line of stitching go visibly straight. It's not so long ago that I would generally tell people I'd been drinking when they looked at my decidedly wobbly stitching. My main question to sewists was how do you make the damn thing go straight?!?!
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| Not pattern matched. Bite me. |
This man is a massive inspiration, role model, ghost-of-Christmas-yet-to-come for me. I want to make him things because I want him to know he is worth the time and effort to make something for. This year he asked me to make another shirt for his birthday. His one request (other than could I make the pockets a little bigger) was to make it as bright as I could manage.
Obviously I am a poor judge of colour so I went to the Twitters to request the suggestions of a number of fabric shops that I like. This technicolor cotton was the winner. Sometimes you need to do a little saving my Dad from himself so I also decided to add colour block contrasts just to tone everything down slightly, very slightly.
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| Eye pop and lock for the win! |
He loves this shirt. We had gone out for tea in a pub with very over the top decor so I quite like the disco lord of the manor look he's got going on here. I have shown a number of people this shirt because when you've done something this extreme you wanna show people in a fit of giddy giggles. Some say it's hideous some think it's fun. Don't give a crap. He likes it.
As always there are some slight flaws that I try my best not to get uptight about. For some reason I keep ending up with about a cm difference in the button bands at the bottom. Possible because I have to keep putting one on upside down as I seem to forget how mirror images work to get the pattern going the right way though I'm not sure how this would cause a difference in length. I did pattern match the right side button band but then realised that would be on the underneath and I didn't have enough fabric to pattern match the left one. Damn it! Ah well it's a busy pattern.
His next request is a nautical waistcoat. I keep seeing trailers for re-runs of Pie in the Sky where Richard Griffiths rocks a lot of waistcoats. Obviously my Dad is more svelte but I do quite like the idea of a day wear waistcoat. Maybe in this or this? What do you reckon. What shall we dress Dapper Dad up in next, I'd love to know your thoughts?
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