another use for that old dress shirt

I really despise throwing out dress shirts once they get that inevitable ink stain on the pocket. Or that spaghetti sauce smear on the sleeve from adoring little girl hands.

Actually, I am secretly glad that my husband ends up with spaghetti sauce smears, little chocolate kisses, etc. on his shirts and pants. (Though I often suspect my children just enjoy using us as a napkin and feign affection so we don't get too mad.) It's another manifestation (in a long list) of what a great dad he is. But I do lament how horrible I am at getting the stains out of his clothes. In an attempt to support his uninhibited fatherly interactions with the girls (despite my lack of talent in the laundry department), I've tried to reuse his stained clothes where I can.

After my younger sister's visit with us over Christmas, I found the perfect use for one such stained dress shirt. My younger sister has been irrationally in love with California for a decade or so. She reminds me quite a bit of my husband in that way. I say irrationally because she hadn't ever been to California, excepting a family trip when she was six. When we moved to Santa Cruz, I knew I had gained the power to entice her to visit. I don't often get visits from my sisters, so it was quite a treat to have her here. And she loved it! One of the benefits, I guess, of living in a cool place even when you, yourself, are not all that exciting. When she returned home, I wanted to give her something to remember Santa Cruz by. Using a stained dress shirt I made this for my scarf-loving, California-loving sister.

I used the already made button placket in the design, allowing for some versatility in how it is worn. I thought about changing out the buttons, but then couldn't find anything I liked better. Plus their simplicity struck a chord with me about what it is I've enjoyed about Santa Cruz since coming here - the simple shapes and colors that make up the ocean and the coastline. Perhaps I resort to paint on fabric too much, but the wave silhouette seemed to embody the feeling of sitting on a bench along the coast, drinking in the beauty of it all.