You won't find this at retail stores.

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Originally uploaded by countrygirl30

Most shirts, or clothing for that matter, you find in retail stores have no uniqueness, creativeness, or even appropriateness. Most of the time you can never find the right size that fits you just right. That's when I decided to make clothes for myself and for my family. It gives me the flexibility to choose the style that fits my personality and fits me the way it should, unlike those cookie-cutter sizes they sell in stores that don't always fit right. In this case, It fits my oldest son the way it's supposed to. Since he has a long torso like his father the front and back pieces needed to be lengthened so that it doesn't look too short on him. The sleeves were also lengthened so that my son can grow into his shirt making it last longer by at least another year or two. This was a practice shirt since I had never made shirts before, despite my sewing experience through high school courses. Credit also goes to my husband for his help since my mother-in-law made his clothes growing up. I have to confess though, this shirt was not made from a homemade sewing pattern but it's the first step towards making patterns at home. What I did was take measurements of my son and wrote them down. Then we placed dressmakers tracing paper between the commercial pattern and large pieces of paper to transfer the pattern onto the large paper. This large paper can be found at any office supply store. As we traced the pattern onto the large paper we added more length to the pieces that needed lengthening using our son's measurements. When we finished transferring the pattern we went over the pattern with a thin marker and used a yardstick for the straight edges. We also marked any darts, dots, arrows, and such onto the new altered pattern piece and also, with a ball point pen, wrote the notes from the commercial pattern itself. We double stitched the seams for a stronger hold. Here you see the finished project. My son is so happy about his new shirt that he wants to wear this on his first day of school. If you ever notice when you make something for a family member they will take extra good care of it. Why? Because it was made from the heart not bought from some retail store. He even got to pick out his own fabric. He picked out Lightning McQueen fabric and suggested to our son that next time he should pick something that's not quite so loud. Otherwise, he loves it and we enjoyed making it for him.