I know I am not supposed to buy quilting cotton for garment making, but every once in a while I can't resist a quilting cotton print.
In this case, the quilting cotton print I couldn't resist was this stylized, scribbled fish print for my husband, who works on sustainable fisheries issues.
As an aside, speaking of scribbled fish, any fellow scuba divers out there seen the scribbled filefish? I love seeing these strangely-shaped guys when I am diving- the blue markings on their sides seem to pulsate and glow underwater. So cool!
As an aside to my aside, another awesome thing about filefish: while diving, the hand gesture to indicate you've seen one is to pantomime filing your fingernails. Ha!
As an aside to my aside, another awesome thing about filefish: while diving, the hand gesture to indicate you've seen one is to pantomime filing your fingernails. Ha!
OK, back to sewing: this quilting cotton from Belleboo is great quality. It's not too stiff and works pretty well for a buttondown shirt. It will soften up more with washing and time, too.
We agonized over whether the print should go vertically or horizontally. Ultimately we decided that if the fish were vertical, it looked like they were hanging dead. We'd rather them alive, so we let them swim horizontally on the shirt.
I used cream colored topstitching because I didn't have the right shade of blue to match the fabric.
For this shirt, I went for Tim's normal size in this pattern, McCalls's 6044: large at the shoulders, between a medium and large for the sleeves and body. I've made this pattern for him so many times (this is my 7th or 8th time!), but if it ain't broke...
These last two photos are for Colleen, who likes my old "Makes in the Wild" posts. So here is Tim in his natural habitat: wearing a fish shirt, drinking from a fish mug, writing emails about fish.
