Useless plaid cotton flannel - twisted and offgrain

Well, that just blew my long sleeve flannel shirt for hubby clean out of the water.  It's a woven plaid, not printed, so when it refused to line up - even with pinning the selvages together and an attempt at coercive ironing and much harsh language in the process, I might add - I find myself back at the drawing board.

I asked on PR's message board about possible uses for this fabric, and have to admit a couple sound useful: the pet bed suggestion has merit here, but using it as bias tape ... I truly hate the colors!  Hubby and I have two totally different ideas of what defines "colorful" clothing.  I love pinks, purples and lavenders, and just about every variation of blue, while hubby likes subdued greens and browns, with an occasional navy blue thrown in but nothing too bright or strong or vibrant.

Just for trivial random rambling fun, the offgrain plaid is balanced but uneven, per my personal definitions of plaids.  While the repeats have symmetry, parallel to the selvage is 3.5 inches while perpendicular to the selvage is 2.5 inches.  I can't exactly use the terms "grainline" and "crossgrain" to describe this fabric.  At least it won't be too expensive of a mistake: I bought it during a half-off sale on a day with an additional 10% total purchase.

Maybe I can use it to stuff my bumroll for Renn Faire ... or maybe if I make a pet bed of it the cats might lay on it instead of my fabric stash ... hey, it could happen.  Now I'll have to go stash-diving for another warm fabric to make hubby's shirt ... it's going to be hard to break the news to him because he's really been looking forward to this shirt since he discovered the fabric 3 weeks ago.

McCall's 4518 Palmer/Pletsch "unisex" shirt for hubby

And yes, I used quote marks for "unisex" because once again, the fitting instructions for turning a flat-front men's shirt into a shaped front women's shirt is ... annoying.  Once again, I cannot help but wonder WHY didn't they do two separate shirts?  I don't think it's new news that (on average) mens' and women's torsos tend to be shaped differently.  So why is a pattern maker trying to make one shirt pattern fit both?

At first, I thought maybe this was some Great Fitting Secret that no one has bothered to tell me ... then I got to actually using my last two working brain cells and recalled seeing women's shirt patterns without shaping.  OK, so the transformation of a totally nonshaped shirt pattern to fit a woman's shape does has its usefulness.

That being said ... I am making this shirt for my husband, who is the epitome of The Ultimate Easy Fitting.  I still am a bit puzzled why there isn't a sheet for just the construction steps ... instead there is 8 pages (!) of fitting plus construction plus more fitting.  Please, Palmer/Pletsch/McCall's ... please make a simple "cheat sheet" of just the construction steps, with asterisks (*) for where to consult fitting notes or just put this in as an addition.

Oh yeah, the official start pic, with what hubby considers color:

I bought this fabric on sale in November, and hubby found it in late December.  I wasn't trying to hide it ... he just doesn't always notice new fabrics unless I show as I pull them out of the bag or box.  The truly amusing part is, he actually asked if he could have this fabric for a shirt!  LOL  This plaid is way, WAY too bland for me ... not to mention I don't like wearing browns, so I wondered who he thought the fabric might be for if not for him.  Gotta love him.

While I would love to participate in Peter's Mens Shirt Sew-Along, I am going to have to jump the gun on it.  Hubby has been patiently waiting almost a month for this shirt.  He really wants a nice warm flannel long sleeve shirt to wear around the house ... and I would like to get new fabric without hearing about "Now where will we put this?"  So, I am starting this shirt today, as the evil white stuff starts to swirl through the air outside my windows ...