These pictures have been sitting in queue long enough that my son looks noticeably young in them. I mean, kids grow fast, but at this point I’m just being lazy! These shirts were the first items I sewed after our big move and they’ve been worn a ton!
Unfortunately, my son gets the short end of the stick when it comes to me sewing things for him. Aside from Christmas jammies, I pretty much don’t! When we moved, he didn’t have any nicer button-ups. Aloha shirts are appropriate for literally every occasion here in Hawaii, so I figured having a couple wouldn’t go amiss.
For the pattern, I decided on Simplicity 8852. The pattern comes with short sleeve and long sleeve options, as well as a pattern for a simple A-line dress (I actually made the dress for my daughter. It turned out cute buuuut she totally hates it. We’ll see if it ever gets photographed and/or blogged!). It comes with sizes 3-8 which is good for my son (but nearly has my girls sized out…not, I suppose, that it matters!).
The pattern itself was great. One thing I found a bit strange is that it has a pattern piece for the left front bodice and a pattern piece for the right front bodice, rather than just having you cut mirrored pieces. The only difference between the two is that the left side has a guide for pocket placement. Maybe that distinction was enough for two pattern pieces? Or maybe it’s to make pattern matching easier? I don’t have a lot of experience with button-up patterns, so I can’t say for sure. I personally didn’t bother to pattern match (I figured he wouldn’t notice one way or the other) and I omitted the pocket. Either way the extra pattern piece was superfluous for me.
I didn’t run into any issues with sewing these shirts, at least to my recollection (which I’ll admit is unreliable currently). The hardest part for me was those collars! I got corners rounded out symmetrically (emphasis on round because they certainly aren’t pointed), but the underside of both collars peep out a bit and I think that could have been managed better if I’d been a little more thorough.
For both shirts, I just used buttons from my stash. The pineapple shirt in particular looked great with a surprising variety of buttons. I really could have gone with different shades of pink, yellow, green, or blue. In the end, I chose light blue for both shirts, but mostly just because these were the colors where I was able to find the appropriate number of matching buttons.
The fabrics are both from Fabric Marts in Hawaii, but I bought the shark fabric years ago on a trip to the big island, and the above pineapple/hibiscus print was bought here on Oahu right after we moved.
When I showed my son the selection of fabrics he could choose from for a shirt, he only had eyes for the blue shark fabric. Because sharks, duh.
But since I was going through the trouble, and I thought the pineapple fabric was adorable, I decided to make two shirts instead of just one and I haven’t regretted it. They both get worn quite a bit!
The fabric is a cotton poplin, I believe, so very crisp and easy to work with. I didn’t know what I was going to make when I bought either of these fabrics so I bought more generously than I needed for this project. I have plenty of the shark fabric left, and a useable amount of the pineapple fabric, so you might see them in other projects in the future!
The truth is that I should make my son lots more clothing than I do! My girls have been so fun to sew for over the years (and I’m not stopping, by any means!), but they are getting older and have more opinions about what they are wearing. Even though my son wasn’t excited about the pineapple print, he wears it just as happily as he wears his cool shark shirt. He’s had no complaints about either shirt at all! I can’t even say that about me and the stuff I make for myself. It’s a nice change of pace to have a 100% totally satisfied customer!
So he’s happy and I’m happy. I’ll definitely be using this pattern to make more shirts for him in the future, especially as this seems like one of those items that’s more cost effective to sew up myself.
Pattern: Simplicity 8852
Size: 4T
Alterations: Omitted breast pocket
Fabric: cotton poplin from Fabric Mart
Cost: pattern $10; fabric $12 ($6/yd using 1 yd for each shirt); buttons and interfacing from stash
Would I make this pattern again?: Yes
pineconesandcactus.com 