Earlier this year Bernadette Banner made a Pirate Shirt. Since then there has been a tidal wave of people making similar shirts of their own. I had already thought about making myself an 18th Century Men’s shirt, but Bernadette’s video sealed my resolve to make this garment for myself. Around the same time I ordered 5 yards of handkerchief weight linen from Fabrics-Store.com. I found some inspiration photos, but my interests diverged: on the one hand I wanted to make a classic, plain shirt. On the other hand I wanted RUFFLES.
After much consideration I decided to make 2 shirts: one would be a plain 18th century shirt, the other would be a modern shirt with a neck ruffle. I made the ruffled shirt first using the Juliette Blouse pattern from Sew Over It.
Since the ruffled shirt was made with a modern pattern and a sewing machine, I decided to go full 18th century with the construction of my pirate shirt, meaning that I sewed every single stitch by hand. Sewing by hand can be extremely rewarding, but it is also quite slow when compared to machine sewing. At several points I longed to pull out my sewing machine and make some quick progress. Instead I toted my project around with me and worked on bits and pieces here and there.
I started with the sleeves: I sewed up the seams, felled down the seam allowances, seamed in the gores, gathered the sleeves down, and applied the cuffs.
Then I moved on to the body: I added in small gores at the neck, finished the front slit, gathered the neck, and applied the collar.
Finally, I gathered the sleeve heads, sewed them onto the body of the shirt, sewed the side seams, felled all the seam allowances down, and finished the hem.
The finishing touches were closures: 2 off-white buttons for the sleeve cuffs, and braided elastic closures. The sleeve closures were my one main departure from historical practice. I had cut the cuffs long enough to go around my wrists with a little ease, but not long enough to button close and still have ease. The solution was to create a thread loop for the button closure. Buttons are hard enough to wrangle when you have a decent buttonhole, so I braided some elastic thread to make dressing myself easier.
The photos speak for themselves: this shirt is marvelous!
Now that I have my authentic pirate shirt I need some pants, a vest, and a hat.
Historybounding is all the rage this year, and I am here for this trend! I love the Edwardian era, which is specifically fueled by my love for Anne of Green Gables and other works by L. M. Montgomery. Growing up I desperately wanted to be Anne, and it turns out that my personality is very similar to hers (This similarity is positive in terms of creativity, but negative in terms of feather-brained-ness).
Earlier this year I made an Edwardian blouse out of wool shirting (Wool shirting is lovely, but requires some extra care to avoid shrinkage. I learned this the hard way). Next I needed a long skirt to go with it. I considered several options of various difficulty levels when making this skirt: drafting a skirt using instructions from the Keystone Jacket and Dress Cutter, using the Fantail Skirt from Scroop Patterns, or being really simple about it and lengthening the half-circle skirt pattern in Gertie Sews Vintage Casual (Again, I know. I did warn you I would be using these patterns a lot!). In the end I chose the half-circle skirt because it was the easiest option, because I already had the pattern, and also because I like the more modern fit and silhouette of this over the Fantail skirt (plus, it uses less fabric!). The Keystone and Fantail skirts have an extremely Edwardian silhouette, but there is some evidence that skirts in period may have also been cut similarly to our modern half-circle skirts (photo from Petit Echo de la Mode in this blog post).
I used a beautiful light green wool suiting from Denver Fabrics. The fabric is a nice medium weight with a cream warp and green weft (or vice versa) – this creates a lovely heathered look in the fabric. I pre-washed and dried my fabric, then cut out the (identical) front and back pieces on the fold. I wanted the skirt to end just above the floor, but this made my pattern piece a few inches wider than my fabric. Rather than narrowing the skirt I pieced the bottom corners on both front and back. I created pocket and pocket facing pieces based on the pieces from Gertie’s cigarette pants. Then I assembled the pockets and seamed or basted everything in place.
Next I sewed up the side seams. I tried to align the piecing perfectly at the bottom of the skirt, but failed on both seams. Oh well, c’est la vie. I then inserted an invisible zipper on one side of the skirt. To finish of the top of the skirt I cut a straight waistband 3 inches wide and a little longer than my waist measurement. The 3 inch waistband was folded and seamed into a 1 inch finished waistband that fit my waist exactly with a 1 inch underlap.
At this point I could no longer avoid the hem, and I set the skirt aside for a while. On one hand I wanted to make the finishing simple – which would usually mean a double-turn hem, sewn by machine. But the rest of the skirt was so beautifully sewn to avoid the appearance of machine stitches, and I didn’t want to spoil that with sloppy finishing. What I ended up doing (after much dithering) was creating an 8 inch facing using a coordinating quilting cotton, and inserting some cotton crinoline into the hem for stiffness. I was surprised to find cotton crinoline at my local JoAnn’s, and it was exactly what I needed. Crinoline is a starched open-weave fabric. Using it in this application helps keep the skirt hem out and away from the legs, but does limit washability (washing in water would remove the starch, and the fabric would no longer be stiff). I cut shaped panels of both the crinoline and the quilting cotton that were seamed together before being applied to the hem. My husband helped me mark the skirt hem so I could then do the finishing.
I do not recommend the method I used to apply the hem facing. After piecing the hem facing in quilting cotton I aligned it with the skirt hem, and sewed it on by machine with right sides together. I then turned this right side out, inserted the crinoline, folded the facing edge over top of the crinoline, and whipped this down by hand. Turning the facing right side out while maintaining the hemline, and then inserting the crinoline was frustratingly difficult. If I was doing this again I would apply the facing to the crinoline using basting stitches, then fold up the skirt hem allowance and apply the facing + crinoline to the skirt using whip stitches. This would result in having to hand-stitch the entire hem (rather than only the top half), but it would be so much easier to move around and make sure the hem is kept smooth. Please, if you try this yourself, don’t do it the way I did.
Once the hem was done all that was left was to make a buttonhole and sew on a button. I had just bought my new sewing machine, and this was my first chance to use the buttonhole and button sewing functions. I selected a plain brass button, and tested the buttonhole before sewing into the final garment. After the buttonhole was sewn I cut the opening using a chisel, rather than scissors, as I feel this gives a cleaner cut edge. I did not finish the side seams, since these are cut on the bias with a 5/8 inch seam allowance and are unlikely to fray significantly.
With that the skirt was done! There is a lot of hem to wrangle when getting into the car, and these skirts were definitely made for an era before rolling office chairs had been invented. Despite these niggling complaints, I am very happy with what I made. I find this skirt to be comfortable and glamorous. It’s not fully historical, but still gives a nod to the past, especially when styled for the Edwardian era. I am looking forward to continuing to build out my Edwardian-ish wardrobe. Next I need to make a petticoat and fix/remake my Edwardian blouse.
I have always loved the clothing people wore in the past, so I have very gradually begun to add historically inspired garments to my wardrobe. I am interested in several time periods: Medieval, Tudor, mid-18th Century, Regency, Edwardian, and the list goes on.
One of the first of the historically inspired garments I finished was the striped petticoat I made last year, which fits into the mid-18th century category. I fast-forwarded into the Edwardian period earlier this year, and made a shirtwaist. I used the Wearing History Edwardian Blouse and Guimpe pattern, and made it up in a delicious textured wool shirting from Denver Fabrics. I had never worked with wool shirting before, and I found this fabric to be delightful!
I made the high-neck version of the blouse with no alterations, choosing to treat this as a wearable muslin. Wool is forgiving, and the blouse is fashionably (for the 1910s) oversized. The construction was quite straightforward, and the instructions were easy to follow. The sleeve was so interesting to construct! The part of the sleeve seam that is toward the back of the arm is longer than the part that is toward the front of the arm. The back part is gathered slightly and eased into the front part, which creates a sleeve with plenty of room in the elbows. It was also interesting inserting the sleeve into the armhole since the sleeve seam and side seam do not line up, and the great majority of the shoulder ease is located at the back rather than being distributed evenly throughout.
Instead of inserting a waist casing I marked the waist with a length of twill tape and adjusted the front and back into pleats so I wouldn’t have to adjust it every time I put it on. I secured the pleats with a length of elastic for ease of wearing. I hemmed the bodice and sleeves using my favourite rolled hem variation, and used snap tape for the back closure instead of buttons or hooks and eyes. The snap tape was SO EASY to use and saved me so much time! 10/10 would recommend. I did have one snap break, though, so if you choose to use snap tape I would recommend that you inspect your snaps before inserting the tape into your garment.
With that the construction was done! I wore it a few times, and snapped a few photos before throwing it in the wash.
That is when disaster struck. I told you this was wool fabric. I had been diligent and prewashed and dried the fabric on a Delicate setting. My dear husband did laundry that weekend, and used the Normal setting. My poor blouse shrunk. Thanks to the loose fit in the body I can still get it on, but it is tight across the back and too short in the arms and body now. I think I can unpick the snap tape and let out the back, but I will probably have to remake the sleeves. And possibly add length to the body? Oh well. Live and Learn. I have linen to make another version of this that will be more appropriate for summer.
Dramatic Lyric 