Making traditional men's shirts, to me, is time consuming, and not fun. A few years ago I made Dick several for Christmas, and he's been after me ever since. I made a few more over the years, trying to use special fabric, or try something special, but I still wasn't inspired.

Wanting a way to show off some of the wonderful things our new machines do, I decided to do them on men's shirts, so I bought plain shirts to do them on. I was so pleased with some of the examples that I wanted to hang them in the store, but Dick wants to wear them!

Procedure:

YOKE

1. Cut a piece of freezer paper at least an inch larger than the shirt's yoke piece. (If the yoke is small, or you want more of the accent fabric to show on the front, you may extend the freezer paper pattern, or draw shapes for the front.)
2. Press the freezer paper to the shirt so you can use a permanent pen to trace the yoke. Ready made shirts are not as perfect as the pattern pieces we use when we make a garment, so your piece might not be symmetrical. (So don't just do half the shirt.) If you have fabric that has a one way design, or you want to make separate pieces, you can just satin stitch where they overlap.
3. After drawing the outlines, remove the paper from the shirt. Press it to the right side of the fabric you're going to add. Cut it out in a rectangle, leaving at least an inch around the pieces, and fuse the fusible web to the back of the fabric. Remove the freezer paper and be sure the fusible is on the fabric, according to the directions for the fusible.
4. Reposition the fabric over the shirt yoke and fuse the main part in place, not fusing the edges. Carefully cut the piece to come about 1/16" from the edge of the yoke, and then fuse it down completely. (The applique scissors may be helpful here.)

To make new pockets:

1. Since there are probably factory markings on the shirt where the pockets should go, you want the replacements to be exactly the same shape and size. Fuse a piece of freezer paper to the back of the pocket. Cut out around the pocket to make an exact pattern.
2. Fuse the pattern to the back of the fashion fabric. Cut out, leaving ½" around the edges, and 2" (or twice the folded part) on the top. Interface the top 2" except for the ½" at each side. Press the top down, folding twice, and all the edges in. Get a good crease when you press, and remove the freezer paper pattern. I used a fusible to hold everything in place. (The Quilter's Edge Lite worked well since it's just ¼" wide.)
3. Stitch the fold down across the pocket and add a buttonhole (if the original had one). To sew the pocket back on, I glue basted it in place with a glue stick. I used my Edge Stitching foot to get a nice, even seam.

Ideas for embellishing the original pockets:

• Applique a shape that corresponds to the fabric on the pocket.
• Applique an amorphous shape on the pocket using the yoke fabric.
• If you have a machine that works with a scanner, scan a design from the fabric and embroider it to the pocket.

Ideas for the body of shirt:

• Applique shapes as above in different places on the shirt.
• If you choose a motif from the fabric, you can use a copy machine to give you various sizes.
• Make a design a lot larger and make it three dimensional with reverse applique.