Hawaiian Shirts, New Look 6197

Back in November, my husband asked me to sew him some Hawaiian shirts for our December warm weather vacation.  I was surprised that he asked me to make him something and I was happy to do it.  I bought some Hawaiian print fabrics from Hawaiianfabric.com and went out in search of a suitable pattern.  There were no Big 4 pattern sales going on at that time, so I focused on New Look which are cheaper in general.  I found New Look 6197 which had the added benefit of including pattern pieces for a woman's shirt complete with darts.

 

 

 

I spent over 20 minutes searching through the New Look drawer at my local JoAnn and putting all of the patterns in the proper order without finding a copy.  Sigh.  Then I turned around...behind me on the racks of patterns was exactly what I was looking for.  Yay!

 

The pattern was very simple to put together, I cut an XL, and put the sleeves in flat.  One thing I would change is that the pattern tells you to under-stitch the front facing.  That makes the under-stitching visible when the shirt is on, like this:

 

Visible stitching:  No good!

No good.  I picked out the stitching to an inch or so below the top button.  Here is the first finished shirt:

I am very proud of my pattern matching:  Check out that pocket!!

 

The 2nd version of this shirt was made with a cotton/poly blend also from Hawaiianfabric.com

There is a pocket on this one too, can you see it? 

hint: the black turtle facing 8:00 is on the pocket!



 

My husband was thrilled with these shirts, and seeing how quick and easy these were to make, I'd be happy to make more.  I'll leave you with one more 'action' shot: