Threads: Top-Drawer Shirts

Have you seen the latest Theads magazine? 

Bells Shirt using the Bells and Whistles Shirt pattern.

Whistles Shirt without the "whistles" with added side panels and diagonal inserts.

Kwik Sew pattern with reversed stripe bottom band, contrasting cuffs and collar stand piecing.

Get the latest issue, September 2011 here.

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My husband is a big guy and can't buy his clothes in Topeka, so a couple of summers ago, we went to Chicago to some Cubs games and stopped by Rochester Big & Tall to shop for his clothes. As I was wandering the store, I noticed all of the men's shirts with hidden details - machine embroidery, ribbons, insertions, decorative stitching - and they weren't cheap! I was really fascinated with them.

So I got all inspired to make some great shirts in pretty basic stripes, but then have fun adding the little mini prints, changing the shapes of the pattern a bit, and just generally letting my mind roam about how weird could I make these and still be wearable. Thus, the two articles in Threads.

I guess at some point in my sewing life, I decided that a shirt is a shirt is a shirt, and I wasn't going to make another one according to the pattern ever again.