Finding the pattern:

Having decided to try sewing my own shirt it was time to find a pattern. Take a look a VoguePatterns.com. Vogue has eight men’s patterns and no shirts. Butterick men’s is really sad. McCall’s men’s is better but not very exciting.  Kwik Sew does have a men’s dress shirt pattern however, it does not have french cuffs.

I searched online for men’s shirt patters with french cuffs. I found one from 1952, a size 16.5in (Neck)

Now, I have an 18in neck, but since this is the only pattern available I will need to modify it to fit me.

Sew the shirt:
As far as sewing goes, I have sewn things like pillow cases, and table runners but nothing complex like a dress shirt. The instructions look intimidating. To start of the process I cut the pieces and basted them together to see if the fit was even close. In the bodice it was. I would need to adjust the yoke, the sleeves, and the neck. The instructions showed where to add fabric for the sleeves. I am on my own for the neck and yoke. More about those adjustments later.

Having the pattern worked out I cut the pieces, Back, front(2) and the yoke.

Step 1 shows the following:

Step 1

The instructions for step 1 are:

They talk about a “flat seam”:

I am going to skip the interfacing except in the collar and the cuffs later. I am going to start with joining the back to the yoke and instead of gathers near the center I will put in pleats about 6in to the left and right of center.

This photo show the pinned pleat of back to yoke.
The next photo shows the completed back-yoke with the flat seam. I did the front sides to the back and the front to the yoke the same way.
The Results:

Next, The front left band ( that strip that the button holes are in) and  the undelap-overlap on the sleeves.

All the code shown in this post is available in the following file:
Code for How to create a storybook on the Android platform

The model storybook app will have four pages of art. These are .png files with dimensions of 480wx275h with a resolution of 72ppi that will be the pages of the storybook.

The image files are available
abookpage1.png
abookpage2.png
abookpage3.png
abookpage4.png

Here is a screen shot of the first page:

Screen shot of page 1

The Process:

Step 1) Using Eclipse Create a new android project.  I used the name “StoryBook” and the package name  example.storybook.one

Step 2) Copy the art for your storybook into the “drawable-mdpi”

Setp 3) Create the four .xml   files for the pages.  My code for the first page is page1.xml  and  is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

    android:background="#CC0000" 

    android:layout_width="fill_parent"

    android:layout_height="fill_parent">

    <Button

        android:id="@+id/next"

        android:layout_width="80dip"

        android:layout_height="35dip"

        android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"

        android:layout_alignParentRight="true"

        android:text="Next" />
    <Button

        android:id="@+id/previous"

        android:layout_width="80dip"

        android:layout_height="35dip"

        android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"

        android:layout_alignTop="@id/next"

        android:text="Previous" />

 <ImageView

   		android:id="@+id/abookpage1"

   		android:layout_above="@id/next"

   		android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"

   		android:src="@drawable/abookpage1"

   		android:layout_width="wrap_content"

   		android:layout_height="wrap_content"   />

</RelativeLayout>

This code creates the layout for the image and the two buttons. You will need one layout for each page so
create 3 more files:  page2.xml, page3.xml and page4.xml changing the highlighted text as follows:

For page 2:  abookpage2  and #627F3A (the background color)

For page 3:  abookpage4  and #DCCD29  (the background color)

For page 4:  abookpage4  and #8A4C56  (the background color)

At this point you should have the four page .xml files in the layout folder and the four art pages in the drawable-mdpi  folder.  By clicking the layout tab in eclipse you can preview the layout.  You should see the art plus two buttons “Previous” and “Next”.

Step 4) Edit the StoryBook.java file  delete the default code and replace with the following:

package example.storybook.one;

import android.app.Activity;

import android.os.Bundle;

import android.view.View;

import android.view.Window;

import android.view.WindowManager;

import android.view.View.OnClickListener;

import android.widget.Button;
public class StoryBook extends Activity {
    /** Called when the activity is first created. */

	private int index = 1;

    private Button nextButton;

    private Button previousButton;
	@Override

//=============================================================================
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE);

        getWindow().setFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN,

        WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN);  
        updateview();

    }   //end onCreate

//=============================================================================

private void updateview(){
	if (index>=5) index = 1;

	if (index<=0) index = 4;
	  if (index==1) {

		  this.setContentView(R.layout.page1);nextprocess();previousprocess();};

	  if (index==2) {

		  this.setContentView(R.layout.page2);nextprocess();previousprocess();};

	  if (index==3) {

			  this.setContentView(R.layout.page3);nextprocess();previousprocess();};

	  if (index==4) {

			  this.setContentView(R.layout.page4);nextprocess();previousprocess();};

}// end updateview

//=============================================================================

private void nextprocess(){
	this.nextButton = (Button)this.findViewById(R.id.next);

    this.nextButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

        @Override

        public void onClick(View v) {

        	index = index+1;

        	updateview();

        }

      });

}// end nextprocess

//=============================================================================

private void previousprocess(){
	this.previousButton = (Button)this.findViewById(R.id.previous);

    this.previousButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

        @Override

        public void onClick(View v) {

          index = index-1;

          updateview();

        }}

      );

} // end previouseprocess

//=============================================================================

}//end class  Story Book

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

      package="example.storybook.one"

      android:versionCode="1"

      android:versionName="1.0">

    <application android:icon="@drawable/icon" android:label="@string/app_name">

        <activity android:name=".StoryBook"

        android:screenOrientation="landscape"

                  android:label="@string/app_name">

            <intent-filter>

                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />

            </intent-filter>

        </activity>

    </application>

</manifest> 

In a later post I will show how to add sound files.

Click here to download the app.

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