The 2nd Black & White Shirt

I’ve been sewing for a long time, and have made everything from suits and shirts to window treatments…even my wife’s wedding dress. My favorite? I love to make shirts, and pretty much any cotton fabric is fair game.

As part of my “real job,” I need to stay on top of trends, and that includes understanding how fabric is being used. A favorite spot is desigual.com, a Spanish clothing company that uses multiple fabrics and often adds graffiti-like accents on their clothing.

Today’s shirt was inspired a shirt I found at desigual. I admired the layered effect, the use of multiple fabrics, the raw edges, and the utility stitches.

I knew this would be a great way to interpret more of the Patrick Lose Basically Black & White collection. There are 28 interesting positive/negative designs which are unrelated except by color, and I used 10 of them in the shirt.

When selecting the fabrics for the shirt, I chose one of the white-on-white mini-prints for the main shirt base layer. For the strips, I focused primarily on the lighter prints and threw in a few dark ones for contrast.

Using a rotary cutter and mat, I cut 1.5” and 2.5” strips (and a couple of 3.5” strips) across the width of the fabric to begin placing the layers on the shirt front. (This would also be a great way to use precut jellyroll strips, right?)

Because these strips are layered, I needed to stitch them onto the shirt from the bottom up. I slipped an 18” x 24” cutting mat under the shirt front, and stacked another mat on top, and flipped everything over so it was all face down.

Removing the mat from the top, I traced the outline of the strips onto the wrong side of the shirt front using a water-soluble marker, and then lifted the shirt piece, exposing the wrong-side-up layered strips. Placing the shirt front face-up on the cutting table, I began placing the bottom layer of strips and sewed them on using utility stitches on the sewing machine. I chose colored thread to brighten up the look a bit (and actually sewed on the buttons later with those same colors).

Continuing on, I placed and stitched on the remaining strips until I reached the top layer. The raw edges will fray a bit as the shirt is worn and laundered. Once the layers of appliques were all stitched on, I finished sewing up the shirt in the usual way.

One change I made when interpreting this shirt was to make the inner collar band and the inside of the sleeve cuffs out of the white fabric rather than use a contrast print as in the original.

I think my interpretation came out well, and it was fun to figure out how to make it work. The original shirt is priced at $126, and we all know it can be re-created for much less, especially if you use pieces from your stash! (This is what I like about shopping higher-end websites for inspiration: the savings are much greater!)

My intention going forward is to post something new every week. Future posts will include more about my sewing adventures, some sewing tips/tricks and maybe some industry insights from my 44 years in the fabric business. And, while I’ll let you know when I find some great new fabrics out there that you should know about, like the Black & White collection from Patrick Lose, you’ll also see fabrics from my stash.

Until then, keep those sewing machines humming! DTFM