Thread Theory Strathcona Henley

I knew I wanted to make my brother Ian something as a present to say thanks for letting me monopolize his Berlin floor space with an air mattress/exploded suitcase for ten days. I already had the Thread Theory Strathcona pattern, and I already had this fabric, so motorcycle henley it was!

The awesome jersey is from Wanderlust Fabrics. I was a teensy bit worried that it might be a little too theme-y or cutesy for a guy's shirt, but I squashed those teensy worries and forged ahead, because I thought it was really cool fabric. Ian is a big fan of motorcycles, and actually has a vintage BMW back in the states that I'm sure he pines for daily.

my dad and my brother

In the end I think my teensy worries did in fact deserve to be squashed, because the motorcycles are small and and subtle enough to be ok!

The Strathcona came together pretty easy. This was the first placket I've done on a knit, and while it took a bit of extra coaxing to get the fabric to feed during the topstitching, it wasn't too bad. Fit wise, I just kind of guessed and cut a S, and it fits great. It's nice and slim and modern around the middle. The sleeves ended up getting shortened 1" because in my bleary, half-asleep, last-minute sewing episode I fused a non-stretchy interfacing to the hem edge and it was no bueno. But I thought they looked kinda long anyway [or so I told myself] so I just cut them off and re-hemmed.

One slightly weird thing about the pattern to note is that the front and back pattern pieces are full pieces with a right and left that you're supposed to cut through a single layer, even though the right and left appear to be the same. There's probably a reason for this that I wasn't seeing, but it could have taken a lot less paper if they were both just on-the-fold pieces. I actually did end up folding them in half and cutting them that way because it was easier, quicker and took up less space.

I also cut the neckband cross grain instead of along the non stretchy length of grain as the piece indicated, although to be honest I didn't even notice it was labeled that way until after I made it and I was googling to see other people's Strathcona's and saw it mentioned. Sewing autopilot!

These pictures were taken on a narrow street in Prague. It was quite a painful experience for Ian, and I'm glad that I was able to twist his arm enough to get a few shots!

Bleerrgghh, so embarrassed.

I would totally make another Strathcona for him, although I don't know if he'll ever accept another one for fear of having to get his picture taken again...

And now it's time to pick the winner for the Fancy Tiger Sailor Top pattern giveaway!

The winner is Carrie with comment #46. Thank you all so much for your comments! I LOVED reading all of your fabric choices, since we all know that picking fabric is one of the best parts about sewing.