Please pardon the horrible photo above. It was taken with my phone moments before the box was closed and handed over.

Work has consumed most of my life this holiday season, however I was able to squeeze out a present that I was actually proud to give away this weekend–my first attempt at making a man’s dress shirt.

I was a bit nervous about the project when I first decided to do it, but the boy’s obsession with snap-front shirts was too powerful to ignore. To get over my fear of making a man’s shirt from scratch (I even drafted the pattern), I checked out a couple of old VHS tapes from the Threads research library at work that were recommended to me by a coworker called Shirts, Etc!

(Yes, I still have a VCR. However, I’m still cool because it’s also a DVD player in one. Although you’d think my Venture Bros. DVDs were stuck in there permanently lately.)
The purple, teal, and pink graphics on the tapes sort of reminded me of the packaging from a game I had when I was in elementary school called Mall Madness. Now, these tapes were made in 1988 and were a bit hilarious at times from being so out-of-date (it looked like she ripped the antennae off her jambox to use as a pointer). However, I actually learned quite a bit from Ms. Margaret Islander.

I revved up my Bernina, followed the tapes almost to the letter and Michael’s shirt came out flawlessly. Margaret covered lots of industry shortcuts and tricks that seemed so obvious once she demonstrated them on screen, but I would never have figured out myself. The only things I did differently were that I sewed real flat-fell seams at the armhole and sideseams instead of following her shortcuts.

It turns out that these tapes are now available on DVD here. It also looks like they stepped up their cover graphics a bit… Wise move, Ms. Islander.