We are starting with the shirt, mostly because that is a fairly simple project for anyone to accomplish. And yes, anywhere I am using a machine, you can totally use your hand stitching.
This was the last shirt that I finished for Pierre. Entirely hand stitched. It took me quite a bit of time, over the course of fourteen days. When I look at the stitching now, I think "Ok, I've done it, now how do I work faster?"
White is by far the most common shirt fabric you will see in any artwork. The checked cloth was really only worn by working men. While this plaid shirt was nice, and he will wear the hell out of it, I knew I wanted to make him some more shirts. I have a whole tubby in my studio storage of white 'linen', but quickly realized that while mum had the best of intentions in buying fabric for me, not everything in that tubby is actually linen. It will require me going through, piece by piece, and running several tests to figure out what I have. No, burn testing isn't always a quick and conclusive test, since both rayon (tree fibre) and cotton both have similar outcomes when burning. I need to also tear it, to see what happens, and also just really examine each piece, feel it, look at it, and even then, it will all be best guess. Mark your linen pieces when you bring them home, especially if you tend to buy mixed or blended fabrics. For this project, I wanted pure linen, and so we went to the fabric store.
Cutting linen is not as simple as making a clip and tearing your fabric into nice, neat squares. If it tears, it's not linen. Period. Each individual thread of the fabric will break, but weave them together, and they produce a very strong fabric that if torn, will damage a good 1/4m of the fabric, pulling warp threads hither and yon. To cut linen, you must decide where you want to cut and then pull a single thread. This pulled thread will create your cutting line. I begin each linen project by washing the fabric, hanging to dry, and then pulling threads on each cut end of the yardage to true up the piece. Then I press the fabric with lots of steam. It takes patience, but is so worth it in the long run to have perfectly square and true edges to your little squares and rectangles.
For a shirt, you need:
1. a big rectangle, the width of half your widest body, plus ease and seam allowance. The length is double your desired length from shoulder to hem. There should not be a seam at your shoulder line.
2. Two sleeve rectangles, the width of your flexed upper arm circumference, plus ease and seam allowance. The length from your shoulder bone to wrist with your arm bent.
3. two underarm gussets, roughly 4" square, plus seam allowances.
4. two side neck gussets, roughly 2" square, plus seam allowances.
5. a collar rectangle 8" x jewel neck measurement, plus seam allowances and overlap for button.
6. two cuffs rectangles, measuring 3" by wrist circumference, with overlap and seam allowances.
For this shirt, I also want a nice neck opening ruffle.
I started cutting off the neck ruffle material from both selvage edges of the cloth. I did this because the selvages were nice and tight, and I can use that edge later when stitching the ruffle to the neck opening. I cut the selvages about 3" wide, and will save what I don't use on this project for future shirts, bagged and labeled as linen ruffle material. You do not want to use modern cloth selvages in any of the seams on your shirt as the warp structure is different than the rest of the cloth. Modern selvages are warp faced weaving, meaning there are double the warp threads in that tiny 1/4" than there are in the body of the cloth. That tightly woven edge prevents your fabric from ravelling, but also shrinks at a different rate than the body of your fabric. If you've ever seen a garment that climbs up the wearer at a seam, chances are, they tried to use the selvage to shorten work time. Just cut them off and save for other projects, even if you just cut the 1/4" of warp face to use as ties on something. Historically, shirts were made using the selvages, butt joined together. They were a different weave structure though, completely different than most modern cloth. The weaving process in a hand woven piece of material means the selvage edges are wrapped with the weft threads. In modern, machine woven cloth, the edges are often not wrapped, and the extra warp threads are there to prevent ravelling.
Monday was disgustingly hot here in Montreal, so I spent the afternoon in the basement, pulling threads and cutting linen into little squares and bigger rectangles. About 2 hours work.
Yesterday was also disgustingly hot, so back to my basement studio I went. Thank goodness you can make a shirt without a steam iron, or there'd be no sewing happening.
I threaded up my machine with poly-cotton Gutermann thread in top and bobbin. I pulled out some nice sewing needles, my thimble, and snips. I do not have any linen thread at the moment. For hand sewing, I tend to use silk or cotton, both of which I can quickly obtain at my local shop. Linen thread has to be shipped in from the states, requiring a free credit card, which I don't have at the moment due to a large number of books I needed for a comp, and the time to ship...which I also don't have. So cotton thread it is for this project!
I usually start by stitching the collar and cuff rectangles as a folded rectangle. I did this by machine. I then clipped my corners, turned to the right side, folded under my long edges a 1/2" and finger pressed them. I left them under a wooden pressing tool to consider what they wanted to become while I went to work on the sleeves.
When using a combination of hand and machine stitches, I tend to lengthen my stitch length to 3pt which more closely resembles my own hand stitching length.
Sleeves want to be a mirror image of each other, so on my cutting table, I laid out the sleeve rectangles, and placed my sleeve gussets to mirror each other. I start by sewing that wee, short seam, by machine.
To make this seam look like it is done by hand, do not use the back stitch function. Instead, use the couture method of pulling both end threads to one side of the seam end, using a hand sewing needle, and tie the ends. I didn't worry about weaving the thread ends back through my stitching since this would be hidden in the rest of the flat felling of the seam.
I then trimmed the seam allowance of the gusset square, and by hand, slip stitched the other seam allowance's fold to the body of the sleeve. I then moved on to sewing the long seam of the sleeve together to make a tube, making sure all of my machine sewing was on the same side of the garment. This will become the inside of the garment, so be careful in this step. Also, leave an opening at the cuff edge for the vent. So the process was stitch the first half of the flat felled seam by machine, trim one seam allowance to 1/4", finger press the other seam allowance over the first, with a fold, and stitch that folded edge down to the body of the seam with a slip stitch in a nice flat fell. I also took the time to finish the vent edges with small hems when I was in the process of felling the seam.
I had two sleeves, a right and left, with machine stitching only visible on the interior of the garment.
To attach the cuffs, remember those cuffs, being pressed by the wooden pressing tool on the ironing board, with edges all turned in and beautiful? They should only be 1" deep when finished. So that's what I pressed them to. It is important to do the attaching of cuff to sleeve by hand, in the method I am about to explain, to give you a nice stroked gather that is springy like gathers should be.
I start the sleeve by running three rows of gathering stitches by machine. You can do this by hand, but why, the machine is by far more precise, and precise is what you want. You want to stitched rows to start EXACTLY in the same line with each row, and yes, you want three whole rows. You can do this by hand, but you have to mark out your running stitches precisely, and be fanatical about getting your stitching some perfectly. I want this shirt done before Friday...not in two weeks time. I have other projects that need doing, and Pierre starts leave on Monday!
I tend to run those stitches for most of the cuff end opening. That way, I can place the gathers precisely where I want them to be. I pull my thread ends fairly tightly. Then, once you have the desired fullness of gathers, with a tugging motion, pull the cut edge away from the body of the sleeve so your little gathers start to line up. Then with a T-pin or darning needle, work the gathers so they stand to attention beside each other like little soldiers. Take your time with this step to make them look really nice. Once they look good, break for lunch, leaving them at attention to consider what they want to become. This rest period is also important for the ease on making your gathering look nice. Sometimes, I will even get to this step before stopping for the night, letting it rest overnight. No, steam won't help the process very much, you still have to wait for the moisture to dry, and you run the risk of crushing your gathers when you hit it with the iron.
Next step is to pin the cuff on to the sleeve.
I pin the cuff to the sleeve so that my stitching line runs right along the middle row of gathering. The folded seam allowance edge of my cuff is my stitching line. Modern stitch technique would have you put the cuff to sleeve right sides together, and stitch through one layer of cuff, through the whole sleeve edge, crushing the gathers. Don't be doing this! You'll just kill your stroke gathers. Folded cuff edge to stitching line of sleeve edge. Slip stitch the cuff to the sleeve, picking up *just the tops of the gather humps*, Trust Me!
I start with the outside, then turn to the inside. I pin everything, both edges, and sew up to the pin before pulling it out. When you turn to the inside cuff edge, you will want to trim your seam to 1/4", effectively cutting off that first row of gathering stitches. It'll be fine, you still have two more rows of them. And again, stitching the folded seam allowance edge of the cuff to just the tops of the gather humps. It should feel like there's a bit of space for the gathers to hang out all humpy in that seam. it won't feel like much, but it's there.
Before you call this cuff done for the time being, you need to do one more step, the little rows of 'top' stitching around the cuff edge.
This is actually a little back stitch. A running back stitch, if you will, since the top side of the stitching is much smaller than the underside. You want to make a smaller rectangle of stitching that follows the finished cuff rectangle, about 1/4" in from the edges. Yes, my needle is tiny. Tiny needles make for tiny stitches. As do thimbles. But you've all heard that lecture before. I also wax my thread when hand sewing, and if the iron was turned on, I'd have given the thread a quick press between sheets of brown paper to set the wax. But it's really disgustingly hot, so a couple of runs between thumb and forefinger will have to do.
And in Tony Robinson fashion, "end of day one", I have sleeves.
For extra reading, check out Sharon Burnston on shift construction, here
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