Hi everyone and welcome! I’m so thrilled that you’ve stopped by! I’m honored to be part of the Thankful Sewing blog tour, hosted by Sewing by Ti, Sewing with Sara and Mahlica Designs! The theme was thankful sewing, so I decided to make something for hubby, to show him how grateful I am for all he does for the family. To be honest, I had this post (and project) planned in my mind for quite some time, but time got away from me and before I knew it, the 26th was just around the corner. So I spent the last couple days whipping up a colorblocked long sleeve tee for hubby and I hope you love it!

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My husband is the most giving, warm hearted person I know. He loves kids and will do anything for them (including spoil them to death.) His love language is gift giving, so he loves surprises and LIVES for the holidays. Now I can’t keep a secret to save my life. I probably ruined the entire experience of receiving this shirt because I asked him a million questions. “what panel do you like best? Should I use the rayon French terry or the cotton lycra? Long sleeves or short?” & so on and so forth. I know. I suck. But in my defense, I rarely sew for him(he prefers store bought). When I do, I always worry that it will be something that he never wants to wear. So I made this shirt as scrumptiously soft and beautiful as I could….and if he doesn’t want to wear it, at least I will! 🙂

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I keep meaning to just bite the bullet and purchase a men’s tee sewing pattern, but I always forget until there is a project in front of me (and no $$ in the sewing budget). So I did what the same as I did the last time I made him a shirt (you can see that project here). I did something that the internet calls “rubbing off” a pattern…which makes me giggle every time I say it. ~~(apparently, I’m a 13 year old boy)~~. I’m an old hand at it now, but first few times I did it, I followed the very clear, concise directions from this Melly Sews blog post . (She is making a boys’ shirt in the tutorial, but the process is the exact same for a man’s shirt.) I’m a bit of a rebel and just get right to it, copying the shirt onto fabric, instead of tracing paper or printer paper… although literally right now as i’m writing, I’m realizing that I keep doing myself a disservice by doing this. If I would have traced it first, I wouldn’t have to repeat this process every single time. haha. Oh well. I’ll throw it on my ~~massive~~ to do list. So learn a lesson I didn’t and be sure to trace your pattern out! 😉

Trace onto paper or fabric & add 0.5″ SA to all sides except the folded side

I’m a rebel & skip the paper part 🙂

tracing the existing sleeve

I had to do a bit of creative colorblocking here, simply to make the panel size work for my husband’s Large size frame. (it was a youth/standard panel) I tried SO HARD to a video tutorial for you, showing how I did it…but I honestly ended up with about 15 minutes worth of out of focus video where you could barely see what was happening. I don’t know how the YouTubers do it. I would have to spend hours to edit out the sounds of my #momlife alone.

Since there is no fun video, here is what I did: I added 2 strips to the sides of the panel. Each was 5″ wide by the length of the sides of the panel (I believe it was 24″). I still didn’t have the length I needed to create the entire front of his shirt, so I then added a strip of white cotton lycra to the very top. This strip was 6″ tall by the width of the panels + 5″. (The very top strip was solely for the underarm/armsyce and neck area, so it didn’t need to be as wide as the bottom of the shirt.) I did manage to get pics of the process for you, so it wasn’t a total tutorial fail! 🙂 The photo on the right (above) is the front and back of the shirt, sewn together, before adding the sleeves.

I’m in love with how this project came out. I used this buttery soft rayon French terry from Aurora Design Fabrics, as well as their watercolor Walking Dead Fandom panel. (If you’re reading this on Cyber Monday, they are having a massive bundle sale today!) These were 2 pieces that I had been hoarding for myself, but seeing as this was a thankful/grateful project and meant to show my appreciation for someone who puts up with a LOT of grief from me from time to time, I felt the urge to share my pretties.

Eric playing on the playground with the kids after his photoshoo

He actually smiled when I presented it to him. He smiles often throughout the day, but is not a fan of pictures, so that fact that he let me get photos of him (especially smiling photos) is a win in my book. Hubby is one of my favorite people and I’m so grateful to have him by my side. We have 4 children, so on any given day, I’m about ready to pull out my hair/have a panic attack/run away and never return….but all he has to do is walk in the door and the entire mood of the household lifts and things begin moving peacefully along again. I don’t know what kind of magic it is, but whatever it is, I’m glad it’s mine. 🙂

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I loved doing this photo session so much! I waited until the very last minute (what else is new) and was a bit nervous I would lose daylight, but we ended up at the spot right on time to catch the last of sunset hour. Hubby rarely gets to be the center of attention, so it was fun having him be that. The kids were supposed to be playing on a play set that was around the corner, but they wanted to be with daddy, of course. I’m glad they did, because the pics of the kids with him turned out to be some of my favorites. I can’t wait to make him another piece and get more pics!

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