Batter Up!
- fabman556
- Jul 20, 2018
- 2 min read
Batting .500
This week I sewed a shirt from another fabric previewed in the Spring Line-Up post from earlier this year. It's fitting that during the week of MLB's All-Star game this fabric features a baseball-inspired stripe. In the earlier post I laid out 8 potential projects for the upcoming months, and surprisingly, I have completed 4 of them. Did you miss that post? Find it here:
The Baseball Stripe
This shirt is made from a baseball-inspired striped fabric which was part of a 3-piece nursery fabric collection form my days as a nursery fabric buyer at JOANN, somewhere around 2010. The collection featured an allover print with a mitt, ball and bat, and a co-ordinating dot (the dots were baseballs) and stripe (complete with the red stitching).
Vertical or Horizontal...or Both?
I wanted to try something different with the stripes this time, and thought about running them horizontally (see inspiration above left). As I searched for additional inspiration, it occurred to me that I could mix it up and run them both ways (see image above right with my scribbles). The stripes are running vertically throughout the shirt except for the back yoke, left and right front and right sleeve). The right shirt front was cut with the stripes running horizontally, and the left front is a combination of horizontal and vertical. The sleeves were cut individually with the stripes running a different direction on each (after carefully confirming before cutting). Sleeve cuffs and placket bindings were cut to match the stripe direction on each sleeve.
The Left Front
To achieve the diagonal split on the left front, I cut two shirt fronts: one with stripes running vertically and one with stripes running horizontally, and stacked them on the cutting table, right sides facing up. Next, I placed a yardstick over the upper layer, determining the diagonal line, and, using a water-soluble marking pen, marked a dot at each end of the line.
With the yardstick removed and the shirt fronts still stacked, I made a small clip through both layers at each dot, and separated the layers. Using the yardstick and the marking pen, I drew a line connecting the dots/clips across each shirt front. On the vertical front, I made another line 1/2" above the first line, and on the horizontal front I made another line 1/2" below the the first line, and then cut each front on the second line. (These second lines created a 1/2" seam allowance.) The upper vertical piece and lower horizontal piece were discarded, and the remaining pieces were stitched together to form the bisected left shirt front.
The remainder of the shirt was stitched together in the usual way. It's fun to have a little engineering challenge and use a relatively traditional fabric in a different way.
Until next time, keep those sewing machines humming, and don't be afraid to sew outside the box!
@danthefabricman
Comments