Taxi Shirt

Taxi! Taxi! Hotel! Hotel!

April, 2006

Explanation

Sometimes, an idea gets into your head, and you just have to follow it through, or you know it will just continue to eat away at you. The novelty checkerboard fabric and the yellow broadcloth fabric are near each other in the fabric store, and my brain drew a connection between the two and labelled it "Taxi Shirt". It probably took me about a year to actually make the shirt, but I always knew I would make it eventually.

It's also linked in my mind with a song from the band "Morphine". I'm hoping this compulsion will go away, but every time I see this shirt, the song goes through my head.

Materials

The yellow fabric is more of the 65/35 poly/cotton blend that Jo-Ann sells under the brand name "Symphony Broadcloth". It really is as bight yellow as you think.

The checker fabric is 100% white cotton, printed with a ³/₈ inch black checker pattern. I think it's meant to be more reminiscent of racecars than taxis, but it was perfect for my purposes.

The Process

Once again, Kwik-Sew's Men's Shirts (View A, Small) pattern. I can make these in my sleep now, pretty much. The only variation to the pattern was that I squared off the corners of the shirt cuffs, and didn't the sleeve plackets button closed.

Doing the two different fabrics was a pain, though, since it meant switching the thread in the sewing machine and the serger back and forth between yellow and black. I probably had to re-thread the machines five or six times.