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Details of 18th century shirt
Okay, I've made progress on the shirt; turns out Zoom meetings where I don't have to pay full attention are good for hand-sewing. The only thing now left is the buttonholes on the cuffs and adding ruffles.
Here's the whole shirt; you can see the little heart-shaped strengthening I put at the base of the neckline. The collar is not stiff at all, but I guess it would be covered by a neck-cloth anyway.
Close-up of the heart. Probably I could have reinforced this much better, though.
Top of the sleeve. The inside of the seam is properly flat-felled along the top of the shoulder, but not along the sleeve. There I just zig-zagged the edges and sewed them to the main fabric, which is sloppier, but it's harder to flat-fell the seam when the sleeve fabric is gathered. The description I went by said to have a sleeve binder, which is basically a piece of fabric sewn onto the inside and covering the seam. But alas, I was too lazy for that.
In general one thing I regret is being too stingy with the breadth of the strips of fabric left on the inside seams, so that it was in some places difficult to flat-fell them! Why on earth, when I had so much fabric and the shirt is so loose, did I do it that way?
The outside of the cuff.
The inside of the cuff; this is hand-sewn. Should I have done a back-stitch instead? I don't know.
The gusset at the neck. I like this construction! But here you can see my difficulties with flat-felling a seam when it suddenly divides into two...
The gusset under the arm. These seams are also not properly flat-felled, I zig-zagged them on the machine and then sewed them by hand to the main fabric. I'm not that used to sewing by hand, and am not sure I did it in the best way. But at least there are no strains on those seams, so it shouldn't be that important.
I can see how hand-sewing is neater in some ways, though, and probably looks very pretty when you're experienced at it. Like, on the machine I usually start by backing up a bit and then going forward, to secure the end of the seam, and it can make for an ugly bit of seam when you do that, with thread ends that you cut off on the outside, instead of securing them on the inside. Of course it doesn't matter on a seam which attaches two pieces of fabric, which won't be visible, but on hems and on flat-felling it's visible.
The little gusset where the shirttails divide. It looks a bit weird--surely it's not meant to bulge out like that?
Okay, I'll give up and make a sewing tag. Three posts make a tag...
Here's the whole shirt; you can see the little heart-shaped strengthening I put at the base of the neckline. The collar is not stiff at all, but I guess it would be covered by a neck-cloth anyway.
Close-up of the heart. Probably I could have reinforced this much better, though.
Top of the sleeve. The inside of the seam is properly flat-felled along the top of the shoulder, but not along the sleeve. There I just zig-zagged the edges and sewed them to the main fabric, which is sloppier, but it's harder to flat-fell the seam when the sleeve fabric is gathered. The description I went by said to have a sleeve binder, which is basically a piece of fabric sewn onto the inside and covering the seam. But alas, I was too lazy for that.
In general one thing I regret is being too stingy with the breadth of the strips of fabric left on the inside seams, so that it was in some places difficult to flat-fell them! Why on earth, when I had so much fabric and the shirt is so loose, did I do it that way?
The outside of the cuff.
The inside of the cuff; this is hand-sewn. Should I have done a back-stitch instead? I don't know.
The gusset at the neck. I like this construction! But here you can see my difficulties with flat-felling a seam when it suddenly divides into two...
The gusset under the arm. These seams are also not properly flat-felled, I zig-zagged them on the machine and then sewed them by hand to the main fabric. I'm not that used to sewing by hand, and am not sure I did it in the best way. But at least there are no strains on those seams, so it shouldn't be that important.
I can see how hand-sewing is neater in some ways, though, and probably looks very pretty when you're experienced at it. Like, on the machine I usually start by backing up a bit and then going forward, to secure the end of the seam, and it can make for an ugly bit of seam when you do that, with thread ends that you cut off on the outside, instead of securing them on the inside. Of course it doesn't matter on a seam which attaches two pieces of fabric, which won't be visible, but on hems and on flat-felling it's visible.
The little gusset where the shirttails divide. It looks a bit weird--surely it's not meant to bulge out like that?
Okay, I'll give up and make a sewing tag. Three posts make a tag...
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Zoom meetings where I don't have to pay full attention are good for hand-sewing. So true! I've got so much embroidery done this year…
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I often do podfic editing and layout for bookbinding, as well, if there's nothing in the meeting that I need to see on the screen. Do you have any embroidery you want to show off in your journal? : )
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I love the heart reinforcement, so near the heart, and so important in fanfic.
The cuff gathers are beautiful!
The tagging facilitates my forming the question, "Where did you get that beautiful linen?" and it seems you haven't already said.
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As for the linen, I just ordered it online, from a Swedish website specializing in linen cloth. : )
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I'm so impressed :)
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The loose, blousy look is great, like a genuine 18th century one. I was watching this video from Liverpool Museums about 18th century dress, and apparently because the tails were so long and tucked into the breeches, a lot of men didn't bother with underwear? :/ I guess the linen was easy to change and wash every day.
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And I have watched that very same video for fic writing purposes. Yep, the no underwear thing is true--or shirt-as-underwear, rather. : )
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ETA: Okay, no, I checked this, and they're supposed to be connected with a little metal link. Hmm.
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How see-through is that linen? It catches the light so beautifully in the first pic.
Interesting you did pleats instead of gathers at the shoulder and cuff. I wonder if that made the seams harder to fell, since, more layers.
Some of the videos I linked before show the linking of neck ruffles, if you want.
I've been thinking about the detachable wrist ruffles. 18th C. ones were apparently frequently basted or tacked on and removed for washing (as were the neck ruffles). That seems impractical for modern purposes. But earlier were either connected with eyelets and ribbon (like sleeves), or with small buttons, and buttons were definitely used in the 19the c, so it's fair to assume 18th c also had them as an option. You could of course make the ornate cuffs entirely separate, just tied around with ribbon, like Tudor ruffs (or, going the modern way, with elastic).
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Thanks re: the wrist ruffles. I should look around for references as to what they actually looked like. I've found some linen lace for sale, which seems the right width, but I don't know if it's too coarse?
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The lace looks beautiful. doesn't look coarse to me, although there would, of course, be more delicate designs. I'm sure you'd have had all levels of ornateness at the time, depending on the wearer's means and the availability of lace.
The beauty about detachable is you can make several with different lace styles, different lengths and amount of floof in the gathers.
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This looks so cool! So light and puffy and nicely finished.
And your flat-felling is so neat, even where the seams divide.
I am puzzled by the gussets in the neckline. Where are they exactly? I guess there's one on either side, on each shoulder? Or something else? I had a lot of trouble with the neckline/collar area when I tried to make a similar shirt. It turned out kind of wrong and now I'm wondering if it would've helped if I had included neck gussets, which I didn't.
I have to confess that I machine-sewed my button-holes :D I hate sewing button-holes. But I justified it by telling myself that they would mostly be hidden by the big buttons I used as cufflinks anyway ;)
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I have never sewed buttonholes by hand before, I think. I looked up how to do it, and it seemed easy enough. My first attempt came out rather ugly, but I think that's because I did it in the back seat of a car with bad lighting. /o\ Let's see how it comes out with good light...
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First of all, yay sewing! That looks fantastic!
Second of all, this is kind of random, but I remember you looking for MP3 players that run off ordinary batteries and I ran across one today:
AGPTEK U3 USB Stick Mp3 Player, 8GB Music Player Supports Replaceable AAA Battery, Recording, FM Radio, Expandable Up to 64GB, Black https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B01NAJ3KQB/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_VVJNTMZWY6T72HSC7CSR
I don't know if that means they're suddenly easy to find again and you already have one, or if this is something that would be useful for you, but if you need one and have any trouble finding one that will ship to you, I'm happy to order and send you one!
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And thanks for the link to the mp3-player! I gave up and got one that only charges via USB, but so far it's worked for me--it's not like I've gone on week-long hiking trips where I might need replaceable batteries during the pandemic...but it's nice to know the option exists! And it does ship to Sweden.