Western Shirts

I read an obituary the other day about Jack Weil. He apparently invented the western shirt of today.  This came as a complete surprise to me.  I thought western shirts were around since the early cowboy days (to much t.v.?).  I started looking up vintage western shirts (His grandson wrote a book and I noticed the beautiful embroidery on the shirts. I started to wonder if I could do a simpler version.  

I have been planning to make my children western shirts for Christmas.  I've never made really fancy western shirts for the kids before.  I find making western shirts really easy, but I would like to add something to make them a little more special without getting into the extra re-designing of the yokes and cuffs, etc.  So now I'm going to start working on new embroidery patterns for shirts that I will publish on my website.

The patterns I have are Simplicity 5366 and McCall''s 6716 (discontinued-can still find online). I have other patterns for western shirts somewhere - if I find them I'll list their numbers.   I thought I would start by pulling the yoke and cuff pieces from the pattern envelope, so I can create a design to fit the actual pattern. I'll try to make it so it can be easily adjustable to any size pattern. Now I just have to come up with some designs I'll like. Wish me luck. I'll add to this post as I make progress.