The Perfect Shirt

I've made four different shirts for myself over the past 18 months now, each using a different design (and incorporating a number of mistakes). Now I'm working on the "perfect shirt" for me (see Figure at right). There may appear to be nothing particularly outstanding about the design shown, but it incorporates a number of features that are important. First of all, it is wide - the design is made to fit my girth, not my waist. Secondly, it uses a dress shirt style hem at the bottom - this ensures there is lots of fabric below the belt so that when the shirt is tucked in, it stays tucked in! The top of the curves at the hem at the bottom are low enough that they also stay out of sight, even when the fabric pulls up (such as when I do stretching exercises). Third, the neck line is much lower than for most commercially-made men's shirts - it is closer to a boat neck in overall form. This allows me to button the shirt up to the top without putting any pressure on the neck - I hate how regular shirts are too tight around the neck, even when they are "loose". I like wearing a shirt I can button up to the top (without a tie - I don't wear ties!) without feeling like I am being strangled! Fourth, the fabric extends several centimeters past the Centre Front line, so that when the shirt it buttoned up, there is no possibility of the shirt gapping open between buttons and showing skin underneath.

The upper part of the shirt may or may not be modified into a yoke - I have tried both, and I generally prefer the non-yoked versions of shirts over the yoked versions. I tend to make my shirts without a pocket, also - I've taken to put the things I usually put into my shirt pocket into my back pants pocket instead - I like the uncluttered look of a shirt without its pocket. I've also found that most ready-to-wear shorts have too long a shoulder and I have shortened the shoulder seam (and moved it towards the front slightly for my particular case).

I have experimented with several collars for shirts, including a mandarin style collar and standup collars - I prefer the latter. I've also experimented with wide cuffs (which I like), and wide sleeve openings (which I don't like as much).

I like the sleeve to be fairly wide at the sleeve cap - I narrowed the sleeve on one of my shirts and found the results to be uncomfortable.

I found that offsetting the buttons slightly from where the collar fastens gives a slightly asymmetrical feel to the shirt front which I like, very different from ready-to-wear shirts. This is particularly effective when using high quality fabrics like hammered silk, where the quality of the fabric highlights the design features of the shirt that make it different from a standard shirt.

I'm not sure whether my "perfect shirt" is right for everyone, but for me, after a considerable amount of experimentation, I think I have found a "look" that suits me and that I like, while still remaining dressy and chic.

Moving forward on all fronts

Although I've nothing finished to show for my efforts yet, I've been moving forward on my sewing projects. After a very intensive period at my work, including several weekends, I've decided to take a few days off work to get my sewing projects going.

First of all, I've nearly finished the nativity scene in fibre optics. The result is more impresssive than I expected it to be, I'm really quite pleased with the effect. I've done the line work with the fibre optics, but I also want to put in a few LEDs for stars into the image. I've also ordered some more fibre optics. These ones were 3 feet in length, and I found that a little short to work with, so I've ordered another 9 cables at a length of 5 feet each. The down side is that they may need a little more current - I've been able to run two 3-foot fibre optics off one 9-volt battery so far - I'm not sure if this will work for the 5-foot fibre optics cables. The circuits are hooked to the snap-ons - I will do this for the shirt as well. It makes connecting the pieces together, literally, a "snap". Also, I've realized that using a snap-on e-panel in this way, not only can I replace the panel with additional e-panels, but I can also retro-fit other garments to take the same panel design. So I could add the panel to a jacket, for example, or to a wall tapestry, as long as I build the battery holders, switches and circuits into these in appropriate ways.

I've cut the fabric for both the black pants and black shirt. I did the pants in a cotton shell first, to make sure of the fit. This is the first pair of pants I've made and I wanted to make sure the fit was right before proceeding into the fabric. The sample pair fit perfectly, though, so I cut the black cotton to make the pants, and bought myself some black elastic so I can do the belt area. For the shirt, I found a black cotton which has a bit of a crepe-like texture, very nice, and I've cut that also.

I'm also working on a princess-seam dress for a friend - I'm preparing the pattern blocks now. More on all of this later - and I'll put up some photos showing details.

Diverse news

I've nothing spectacular to report today, just lots of bits and pieces.

I received my LilyPad Arduido Deluxe Kit in the mail late last week. I was really excited when I unpacked it, especially given that it's got a fully programmable computer chip that you can sew into clothes, but the kit came without the USB link which is necessary to program the motherboard. Apparently the LilyPads are selling like hotcakes and they're having problems with keeping supply up. Then, just yesterday, the link arrived. Unfortunately, the uploading doesn't seem to work - it gives me an error message. So I still don't have the thing working yet.

Still, I've got a lot more ideas about what to do with it when I do get it working. Things like displaying "emoticons" that express feelings, or having a light go off when my phone, buried in its pocket rings. I'd really like a "soft phone" but I guess that's still a ways off (perhaps not so long, though), or having an indicator to tell me that I'm slouching.

Also, thinking about displaying lights on clothes got me interested in black outfits. On the weekend, I went down to the fabric stores on Queen St. West (Toronto) and found some really nice black cotton fabrics, one almost velour-like that I plan to turn into my first pair of pants, and another semi-transparent with black vertical stripes (black on black), that I could turn into a shirt. A totally black outfit seems like it would be really cool to make. So even though I started thinking this way as a background for lighting up the clothes, now I'm totally into thinking and making "black".