Happy birthday to Tim! Here are his annual birthday shirts for 2025, with a fish theme...
Both shirts are made from McCall's 6044, my go-to pattern for Tim. At this point I've lost track of how many versions of this pattern I've made over the years, but it's definitely over 20, and probably over 25.
This green version is made with a gorgeous piece of fabric Tim bought himself on a work trip to Tanzania.
He went to Zanzibar and picked out this beautiful, crisp cotton from the fellow who had designed and handed printed the rustic fish wax print. I love the green, grey and butter yellow color combo!
I'm pretty proud of how I got the large-scale print to match pretty well across the front of the shirt. I didn't quite nail it on the pocket despite my best efforts, but I'm giving myself some grace because I was working with a very limited amount of fabric and the rustic print is not consistent across the fabric.
The perfect grey buttons from my stash finished off the project.
The maroon version is also from a work trip Tim took to Bali- the hand-stamped Indonesian batik fabric was part of the conference swag bag. What?! I want to go to conferences where they give me handmade fabric. I need a new job.
I love the rich maroon of this fabric, too, and the bright, contrasting pops of color from the tropical reef fish, in bright yellow, teal, purple and red.
I used the narrow border print on the batik for the button bands, as well as on the pocket. Speaking of the pocket, I'm pretty chuffed with my pattern matching there:
I was short on fabric again, so I had to cut the sleeves a bit shorter than I normally do, but I took a narrower hem and I think they're just fine.
For closures I went with some perfectly coordinating tan mottled buttons from Wawak that I had in my stash.
He seems to like both of his birthday shirts this year and I'm pretty proud of them! He gets so much wear out of these shirts. Some of the older versions I made him years ago are now threadbare and faded.
