Fruit From My Hands

I grew up near a farm as a tomboy so boots and western clothing were the norm.  As I’ve grown older, I’ve never lost the love for either.  A recent stint of line-dancing re-ignited my passion for a well-fitting pair of boots and an ornately decorated yoked western shirt.  After reading a blogpost in which the blogger was mashing up a modern-styled western shirt for herself, I set my mind to making myself a shirt with decorative yokes and yes, pearl snaps.

I ran across this fabric and it screamed, “Buy me! I’m born to be a western shirt!”.  The selvage says it is part of the “You Go, Girl” line.  ‘Nuff said.

Unfortunately, western shirts are no longer in “vogue”, at least not in the Big 4 pattern companies so I was forced to dig into the pattern stash.  I ferreted out McCall’s 7955, a man’s western shirt with yoke variations, circa 1995.  The largest size, XXXL, was still a little too small for me so I cut the shirt fronts out with a full bust adjustment (FBA) using the pivot method.  And it would have been wonderful………until I discovered that I had neglected to adjust the yokes as well.  I didn’t discover it until sleeve construction and at that point, there was no going back.  Refusing to trash the whole shirt at this point, I creatively re-drew the armscye to catch the edge of the yokes.  After all, I had applied gold braid to the yoke and nothing with gold braid trim can be deemed a mistake, right?

No western shirt is perfect without pearl snaps, but alas, pearl snaps are as scarce as a modern western shirt pattern.  I found a seller on Etsy, Cowgirl Snaps, whose variety of colored snaps makes my mouth water and my creatives juices flow with visions of western shirts to come.  I completed the shirt with gold braid shining, wickedly incorrect armhole in place and pearl snaps proudly adorning the front and ran to put it on.  I wore it out the next day with a denim skirt. Despite the errors, the shirt fits well……slightly large and boxy as I would expect a man’s shirt to fit but I’ve always liked menswear fit.

And let me just say, pearl snaps make everything better!