I bought the corduroy fabric with the thought of making a pair of pants for Sidra. But when I showed the fabric to him, Sidra said that he wanted a shirt from this fabric. His reason? He said, “Everyone would say that this fabric is better as a pair of pants, so I want to be different and use it as a shirt.” You can’t argue with that, can you? So a shirt it is.

In fact, it was a good opportunity to try my hand on one of the pattern from the Sewing for Boys book that I talked about in my previous post. The Henry shirt is the first project in the book and I really love it. It looks like a simple shirt in a glance, but a closer look reveals more details like the wide pockets, the sleeves and back yoke, and the all-in-one collar. Instead of fabric with different pattern, I placed the corduroy in different direction to create a subtler texture.

I use size 6/7 for Sidra’s shirt. Although he’s 8 years old this year, Sidra is a bit small so the size fits him fine. No alteration was made on the pattern, but I did make a few changes when sewing the shirt.

Only one layer is used for the pockets, instead of doubling the fabric per the instructions. The sleeves/back yoke of Sidra’s shirt is unlined and double- topstitched along the seamlines. I also use double topstitching on the front-to-side and back-to-side seamlines to emphasize the curved lines of the yoke.

Sidra loves the shirt! He likes to wear it over a T-shirt and let the buttons open. “It looks better like this,” he said. I love it too!

Pattern is Henry shirt size 6/7 from Sewing for Boys.