Vintage Style Planes Shirt for Dad - McCalls M7206

Every now and again I make things for other people. 

Yes I really am that kind. You do have to meet a special criteria though. 

1. You have to provide the fabric [and I get to keep the leftovers]

2. I have to REALLY love you!

My dad wanted a vintage style shirt for the goodwod revival. He's seen someone wearing one at goodwood and looked online for something similar and found that they retail for about 50$ and would have to be shipped over from america! 

Naturally that seemed a bit excessive for a cotton shirt so he went to abakhans and picked up a sewing pattern and this cool vintage planes fabric and asked me to whip him one up.

The pattern was McCalls m7206 which is a mens bowling style shirt. 

 The front of the shirt is panelled which wasn't going to work with the fabric because you'd end up with most of the planes cut in half. So I hacked at the pattern with my scissors and taped the three panels together to make one shirt front. Luckily mens shirts don't have to have room for boobs so it went together pretty easily with minimal swearing. 

In fact the swearing only started when it came to cutting out. My Dad had been very specific that he wanted as many whole plans on the shirt as possible. Which meant I cut everything out in one layer and did a lot of moving things around trying to get as many planes as possible. There is a whole plane on each shirt sleeve, lots on the back and a few on the front. I even cut the collar in such a way that no matter if its up or down the planes are facing the right way!

 [top tip - if your going to cut things in a single layer to make sure you make the most of your print be sure to flip your pattern pieces so you don't end up with two left sleeves etc.]

I'm particularly pleased with the view from the back and the large plane that is basically central. 

Construction wise I wish I'd ditched off the instructions because they were AWFUL! Either its the pattern or its me but anyway I ended up having to do some creative thinking to keep everything neat and tidy. For example the back collar neckline is bias bound which does actually leave a nice finish. 

Also its really hard to see but I love that some of the writing is on the edge of the collar [each of the planes has its name underneath] 

Dad even chose the buttons himself and I'm pleased to report that every single buttonhole went in perfectly first time! 

So all in all I think it turned out pretty banging and my dad was dead pleased! I love his goofy grin in the last photo! And I think he may be on the hunt for more vintage inspired prints so I can make him a few more!!! 

Unluckily there wasn't enough fabric left over for me to make anything substantial for myself! [all that dammed fussy cutting!!!!]

So instead I'm going to use the scraps to make me and mum some hair accessories. 

In other news!!!! 

I've sewn up a few bits for myself and been working on baby quilts!

I've been climbing again!!! And I'm happy to report that my climbing shoes were incredibly comfortable!!! 

And my brother snapped this photo of me which I LOVE. Okay so I'm not far off the floor [this is the bouldering room so you don't go up that high] But 

1. I made my chalk bag it has penguins on it

 2. LOOK HOW STRONG I LOOK!!!! 

Anyway I absolutely loved climbing again and had big plans to go again this week but I was far too sore!!!! So hopefully I'm going to go next week! 

Much Love Frankie 

xxx

Worry Monster

I'm a worrier, I worry about just about everything. In fact for the past week I've been waking up at 6.00am every morning worrying that my alarm hasn't gone off and we are going to be late for school. 

Even though we haven't been late to school at all [Yet, touch wood] not even on the day when the alarm actually didn't go off and we didn't get out of bed until 8am. And considering my son has two clocks in his room and can tell the time so knows when we need to be out of bed, its not something I really need to worry about. 

But still I do.

But funnily enough this worry monster isn't for me [Although I might make myself one] This one is for my cousins lil boy, he's not been very well over the past couple of years which fully sucks for a kid. And as a result he's started to worry. 

I happened to notice my cousin had tagged her husband in a post of kids worrying and offered to make him a worry monster. 

Okay so the way it works is, you write your worry on a piece of paper, pop it into the worry monsters mouth and zip the mouth up so he "eats it". I think its based on the "a problem shared is a problem halved" idea. 

But the main bonus is that as a parent you can look and see what your kid is actually worried about without having to have an awkward conversation with your kid [not that I think you should not talk to your children but we all know the older they get the less they like to verbalise their feelings.]

Its pretty easy to make one up but if anyone's interested I can write a tutorial?

I used felt to applique the eyes and the zip mouth has a pocket bag behind it. I'm not sure what this kind of pocket is but it was nice to stretch my skills on a project for a change. This kind of zip pocket should transfer over to my dress making as well. 

The whole thing is stuffed with kid friendly stuffing and is nice and squishy. I tried not to make it too babyish because the boy who is going to is growing up fast and I didn't want it to become obsolete too quickly. 

All in all I'm really pleased with how it turned out I just hope it does him some good. 

In other news!

- I'm enjoying me made may! I just wish the weather would pick up a bit. 

- I have a cold, I got absolutely soaked on Tuesday morning [after wearing a summer dress on Monday!!!] And I think I ended up with a cold because of it. It doesn't feel like hay fever and my throat hurts so if anyone has an cold remedies hit me up. 

 - I had a visit from my sister and brother in law last night and it was lovely, lots of laughs to be had!! 

- My camera has thrown yet another hissy fit, II think its down to the lense not the actual camera body but I need to have it checked out at a proper shop soon so I can test my theory. In the meantime it means I'm struggling to take outfit pictures! BOO! Luckily I've got a back log of posts to write so their shouldn't be any interruptions to regular blogging. 

Hope your all enjoying me made may! 

Much love Frankie 

xxx

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