Wearing Christmas

In the Beginning...

It's fun to dress for the holidays! Dating back to the early 1990s when I managed the JO-ANN store on Salem Pike in Dayton, OH, holiday shirts have been part of my wardrobe. I made them for all the holidays and even a few based on current trends (remember the sunflower trend? I had a shirt for that). The neat sales trick was leaving the bolt of my current shirt fabric on the cutting counter; many customers looked at my shirt, then the bolt of fabric, and added a piece to their order.

The Shirts of Christmas

It's true that I have at least one shirt for every major holiday. There are a total of six shirts for the Christmas season, and it will soon be time to start wearing them. I'll share them with you below. (And if you think I'd wear one of the Christmas suits at the top of the blog, you're right!)

Holly x 3

This is the first one of the six, made from the same holly print in three colors; this is the Dayton era, early 1990s.

Santa Scenic

The second shirt is a scenic print with snowmen and Santa. Scenics are a challenge for the collar pieces when it comes to keeping the design facing the right way, so I had to cut the fabric on the cross-grain and put a seam in the center back. Another Dayton-era shirt, early 1990s.

Snowy Holly

If I had to choose a favorite, this one is it. The holly print design is accented with snow. More Dayton-era, early 1990s. (Sure glad I lost some weight this year and can fit into all these old shirts!)

Grinch (my Hero)

I was so excited when we received the licensed Grinch fabric at the store. Back in those days, we started juggling seasonal craft and decor items in stores in September, with Halloween and Christmas merchandise vying for space on the floor, and a huge amount waiting in the stockroom. By the time we got past Halloween, I was so burned out that my attitude was very Grinch-like. More 1990s Dayton.

Bah! Humbug!

See a theme developing? Back in 1990s Dayton, the Holstein cow theme was very popular. We had a print on the calico wall with the word "moo" repeated in small script all over the fabric. I thought it would be great to re-interpret it using the phrase "bah! humbug!" in white script on red and sent that idea to the JO-ANN fabric buyer. She responded with "Don't you think that's a negative message?" (I thought, "And your point?") I had been asking my customers what they about it and there was definitely interest. (I thought it would be fun made into a stuffed Santa...it would look like a stripe from a distance, but up close...!)

The buyer decided to create a Bah! Humbug! fabric for the following Christmas, but instead of a simple script design like the Moo fabric, we receive a fabric with "Bah! Humbug" in a block, surrounded by Ho! Ho! Ho! and little animals...talk about a mixed message! Disappointed, but thinking this would be the only version of this fabric I would ever see, I made a shirt, still early 90s Dayton.

Bah! Humbug! #2

In the mid-1990s, when I was working in the Hudson, OH flagship JO-ANN store, (and still thinking I'd never see the "right" Bah! Humbug! fabric), I decided to make my own. Using a piece of poly/cotton Oxford cloth, fabric paint and Christmas-themed stamps, I printed appropriate designs and words by positioning them on the fabric after I cut out the shirt, but before I sewed it. I think it came out OK!

Sidebar: Writing this, I have realized that all my Christmas shirts are at least 20 years old. Much of my excess holiday fabric stash was purged last year before our move to South Carolina, but I still have quite a bit on hand. Time to make some new ones!

Bah! Humbug! #3

When I took a job at the JO-ANN corporate offices in Hudson in the early 2000s, I interacted with buyers every day. I decided to try again to get a decent Bah! Humbug! fabric and talked to the current holiday fabric buyer (not the same one as earlier) about my idea. She was very receptive, but I never saw anything come of it. A year later, I succeeded her as the buyer of holiday fabric (who saw THAT coming??) and discovered that this red and green on white design was developed and printed but never purchased, and I was obligated to buy it. This was still not the ultimate design, but much closer to my initial idea. I put it in the next Christmas fabric collection, and it sold fairly well. I snagged a piece for a future shirt.

Bah! Humbug! #4

As the holiday fabric buyer I finally had the opportunity to create the ultimate Bah! Humbug! fabric...and I did! The white script on red is perfect. (I snagged a piece of this for a future shirt, too.)

I even had the stuffed Santa made up to show in an ad. This was the best part of being a fabric buyer!

Options for Christmas Shirts

There are plenty of other options in the stash for Christmas shirts. (If I made all these pieces into shirts, I would have almost a month's worth!)

I probably won't have time to make a new Christmas shirt for myself this year, but maybe next year.

Until next time, keep those sewing machines humming! (Maybe you should make yourself a little Christmas wear!)

DTFM

danthefabricman@yahoo.com