An Elizabethan Shirt and Smock

It has been quite a long time since I finished the first part of our Elizabethan garb, and I have let myself get distracted from even starting the rest of it, but here are the shirt and the smock -- David's and mine respectively.

There are a number of shirt and smock patterns available for free on the internet -- both Grace Gamble's shirt pattern and the one from the Elizabethan Smock Pattern Generator seem to be historically accurate and used often by re-enactors -- but I decided to stick with the basic patterns from The Tudor Tailor book. 

These are both fairly simple to scale up from the graphs, as almost every piece is either a square or a rectangle.  I made the shirt with a plain collar and cuffs, and the smock with a ruffled collar and cuffs; both have tie fastenings.

I used the IL019 linen -- 5.3 oz per yard -- from Fabrics-Store.com, and washed and dried it in the machine three or four times before cutting to soften and pre-shrink it.  It is the mid-weight linen, with a bit of that lovely linen slubbiness and heft but is not too heavy.

I decided to flat-fell all of the seams, which with french seams are the two most common period seams.  I like the look of them, and the flatness.  They turned out well on the whole, although working the underarm gussets was a bit awkward, and so I did them a little differently from the book's.  I attached this square gusset as instructed, but instead of sewing the side seam first and then inserting the sleeves, I started working the flat-fell at the bottom of the underarm gusset, sewed up the front of the armhole to the shoulder and down the other side, and then straight into the side seam, all in one go.  Trimming this for the second pass of the flat-fell was a little awkward, but it turned surprisingly neatly, towards the back on the side seams and towards the sleeve on the armholes.

I'm in two minds about the ruffle -- it is obviously too short to iron, so that it has a kind of solidity to it which is not especially handsome, but under a waistcoat will perhaps not be so obvious.

David was looking at my blackwork sampler one evening and said, "You know, I really like this one.  And this one.  I like all of them.  Can you do some on my Ren Faire shirt?"  Well, this was like saying, "Honey, could you knit me some socks?" -- of course I said yes, although I didn't really know at the time if it would be as simple a matter as it seemed.  The biggest problem was that all of the borderlike patterns I knew of were a bit girly, so I thought of Celtic knotwork and wondered if I could find a chart.

This was actually quite fun once I realized the trick of it.  I couldn't find any suitable chart online, so I had to "unvent" a couple. I liked a twist-straight-twist-straight sequence I saw somewhere, so adapted that, a narrow one for the cuffs and a wider one for the collar. 

You can see my thought processes in the page of sketches below.  The top one (which has a height of 10 stitches) is finished at the left edge and increasingly draft-like as you go towards the right.  Basically, all you have to do is draw the squares, then fill in the edges slanting to the right or left depending on whether the ribbon should cross "over" or "under".  This seemed quite miraculous to me when I saw how it worked!

In theory, this is infinitely expandable, although the ends of the border would have a greater and greater number of "unconnected" ribbons depending on how many you use.  The 4-stitch border (which is the one I used for the shirt cuffs) has only one ribbon, the 8-stitch border (which I used on the collar) has two, and the 12-stitch one has three.  (Whoops, I see a mistake on that one now!)

I actually did the blackwork without my contact lenses.  The only benefit I have ever found to being extremely near-sighted is that of having Super Microscopic Up-Close vision.  If I look at something at a normal hand-working distance without my glasses, it would look like this --

but if I hold it within, say, two inches of my unaided eye, it looks like this --

which as you can imagine is perfect for counting those very fine threads of linen!  (And for removing splinters, but that's another story.)

I worked this particular piece in two strands of regular embroidery floss, each stitch over four threads of the linen.  I'm not entirely pleased with this result, but for a first effort it's not bad.  The pictures above are my sample -- when I worked the shirt, I basted the "safety box" one stitch out from the design, as stitching into it sometimes incorporated red fibers into the black floss which remained behind when I pulled it out.  I highly recommend the basted outline, by the way -- enough said, I think.

I added a "turning" in the knotwork at the center back of the collar as I was working it, in order to lengthen the design enough to fill the ends of the collar, but I think unless you actually count the turns you'd never know.

I did do all of the blackwork before cutting the pieces to size, for ease of handling, having heard this advice from a number of sources, luckily for me well before-hand!

The man's shirt differs from the woman's smock mostly in that it has neck and side gussets.  I'm not sure why women don't need the neck gusset, but the side ones, because of the shirt's much shorter length, need a little extra room and reinforcement at that point to keep from tearing.  Also different, at least in the Tudor Tailor versions, is that the shirt is gathered a little between the collar and the straight top of the shirt, whereas the smock has a curved neckline and fits smoothly where it joins the collar.

I haven't decided yet what kind of ties to put on the shirt -- for my smock, I simply braided three strands of crochet thread, but I was thinking for David's I might try a lucet braid.

Mistakes: I wasn't very careful when I cut the shirt pieces, and so the front and back are slightly on the bias and don't sit quite straight.  I had no idea how to set in the side gussets -- maybe this was after I decided to flat-fell all of the seams, which then meant that the "flaps" at the bottom of the shirt had turnings that sometimes had to go first one way (for the flat-fell seam) and then the other (for the turned edge) -- I sewed in one of the side gussets and hand-sewed the other one simply on top of the seam and turnings, but wasn't especially happy with either method.  I assumed that the generous-seeming size of the shirt would mean that it would fit the 5'11" David easily, but the collar is barely long enough, and the length of the shirt itself is a bit on the short side.  I haven't seen anywhere what a "typical" length is for an Elizabethan man's shirt, but the book's illustration is just above knee-height (the idea being that the side slits allow you to wrap the tails between your legs, fore and aft as it were, and this is what serves as underwear).

I cut the neck slits the length in the pattern, which is far too long.  Since at the time I was sewing it was approaching winter, I also ran up a version of the smock in flannel just to use as a nightgown, and made the neck slit half as deep, which is much more comfortable and a lot less drafty.

Right!  On to kirtles and doublets!

Comments

[Berva (Mom)]

All I can say is "Wow!" I couldn't do that now if my life depended on it. Probabaly could have 30 years ago . . .

[Wendy]

I agree, Berva, wow. period.

[Jeanne]

PS, upon beginning to make the bodice for a kirtle, I understand now why the Tudor Tailor smock has such a long neck slit.

It does not in fact have anything to do with going over your head, but is cut long so that the base of it doesn't show under the outer garment(s).

As I understand it, Tudor bodice necklines are necessarily on the low side because the fashion for flatness at the front and the lack of (modern) darting mean that the neckline would pooch out unbecomingly if it was much higher than the bottom of the armhole. This in turn means that if you don't want the little reinforcement at the bottom of the smock slit to show (which you don't, I assume!), it must fall beneath the neckline of the bodice.

I do recommend, though, that if you make up a smock to this pattern as a modern nightgown, cut the slit only a little longer than necessary to go over the wearer's head....

[Smschanda]

I found your blog while looking for an example of this style of linen smock/chemise. I'm writing though because then I looked at the rest of your work and I LOVE the miniatures you are working on! I've been contemplating doing a similar project and it's so awesome to see how yours is coming along! Thank you for sharing your work with the world!

[Jeanne]

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Well, thats very kind of you to say so! I must warn you that miniatures are very addicting I have since remade that linen smock, since the wrists and neck were a little snug I cut the sleeves off entirely, and rounded the neck and made a channel so that I can tie it with a ribbon and have made a newer one that fits better! with a buttonhole stitch edging in blackwork around the collar and sleeve frills. I highly recommend the Tudor Tailor books!Best,Jeanne