Shirt pattern

Simon Makes himself a shirt

Why do I want to make my own shirt?

I can remember having a battle with shirts since I first started secondary school.  I know my teachers and parents put this down to me just being an awkward teenager but 30 years later I realise why.  They just didn't fit.

This hasn't been a real issue as most of my working life has been spent in a workshop making things where normal dress is a T shirt and jeans but as it's almost 10 years since I started my company selling chicken coops so now I spend much more time in the office and something resembling business dress is a little more suitable.

Why don't my shirts fit?

I was told as a child "don't slouch" Do I slouch or is that just the shape of my body?

My neck is quite large at 17 1/2" so off the shelf shirts are a little limited.

My shoulders are wide and forward giving me a rounded back.

A shirt that fits my neck will normally have a yoke that drops over my shoulders.

One that fits my shoulders will be have lots of extra fabric across the chest, lower back and belly. I've got shirts that fit my shoulders but have an extra 20 inches of fabric in the body!

I've had a shirt made by itailor and it doesn't fit too badly although the arms could still be further forward.

Off the shelf I've found that TM Lewin shirts fit quite well but they have a very limited range in my size.  a 17 1/2" collar slim fit is almost right (i'm far from slim even having shed 3 stone on the dukan diet) but the shoulder seams are still a couple of inches past my shoulder joint and there's excess fabric under the arms and around the chest.

So armed with inspiration from malepatternboldness.blogspot.co.uk and David Coffin's book I'm about to try making my own.