A Work-a-Day Elizabethan Shirt

Well...mostly work a day.  This project was intended to be just a shirt to wear under my late period wear; one which does /not/ have silk insertion seams as the last shirt I made does.  Even though the silk sewn shirt is fairly heavy and should be durable, my brain won't let me abuse and get it dirty as I probably will with this one.   This project was completed a good six months ago, and took about nine months of procrastinating to finish--there is a certain amount of guesswork since I wasn't doing a good job of journaling my projects during that time.

Wearing the pluderhose from my Brunswick Suit for the photos.

Garment Description:

On the whole, this project was a fairly standard patterned shirt for the era; extremely full body gathered into a moderately stiff collar, sleeves moderately full (not as full as they become in the first half of the 17th cen, but certainly not fitted).  It is quite astonishing to see the amount of fabric which goes into an upper class late 16th century shirt, although they do begin to get slightly narrower in the last quarter or so of the century.  I chose not to have any integrated ruffles on the top edge of the collar or sleeve cuffs--including them may have been slightly more common for the earlier part of my target 1560-80, but I wanted to keep it plain...I can always wear a separate ruff on top when I chose to be fancier.

On the whole, shirts were your primary undergarment, and protected the much less washable materials of your fashion layers from skin oils and sweat.  That said, they could have done so with much less fabric in them...conspicuous consumption was definitely a thing here.  The majority of the surviving examples I have noted, and many of those which are visible in paintings (mostly earlier in the century, admittedly) also show blackwork or mono-chrome embroidery (including whitework); I feel it is safe to assume there is some survival bias going on here, as shirts would be passed down until fit only for rags.   There are also some other results of wearing such a poofy shirt--I find it effects the shape of the doublet worn over it to some degree.

Sources:

My main source of information was--of course--Patterns of Fashion 4 by Janet Arnold.  More specifically, the shirt worn by Nils Sture, patterned on page 68.  Another piece of inspiration was the un-be-ruffled shirt noted on page 20, illustrations 7/8A and B which belonged to the same family and had plain cuffs and collar (and was not detailed by Janet Arnold).

Shirt of Nils Sture. 
I am uncertain of the image source, as it was saved on my PC years ago.

Who:

My persona (of any version) would not have made his own shirt, even if I weren't an Irish savage--it is something which would have been purchased from a specialist, most likely ready made.  Looking through the introduction to PoF4 you can see that shirts would mostly have been made by seamstresses, with embroidery (including openwork seams) and other forms of decoration being done by another specialist.  Occasionally a shirt might be made for a husband, son, or--in the case of 6 year old Princess Elizabeth for her little brother Edward--even brother as a labour of love (and useful way of staving off boredom, perhaps).

In all likelihood, a shirt like this--given how plain it is--would have been purchased off the rack when needed by upper middle class as an everyday piece of wardrobe.

My Goals:

My primary goal was the usual:  I need this, therefore I shall make this.  I wanted a relatively plain, durable shirt I could wear under my late period wear when I am not fencing (as I have a separate shirt for that, which passes the punch test), but not feel like I had to worry about as with my openworked shirt.  As I started the project at an event, I chose to not overthink the pattern, and used a variation of the one I used previously.  While I didn't plan to, I ended up handsewing the garment completely...oops.  I took it as an opportunity to practice my hand working and such, I guess.

I don't think I had any specific not-goals, other than duplicating the fineness of similar original shirts--one of the modifications from period practice which I used was a much heavier linen, for durability.

Cuff from Alpirsbach Monastery

Materials:

Linen.  White.  That is pretty much the option, although there was some variation in how coarse it was, even in the same garment--the cuffs/collar might be of a coarser linen than  the rest of the garment (to support the fastenings, presumably), but for an upper (middle) class the linen is a good bit heavier than common for period.

For my garment, I used the Sew Classic Linen suiting from Joann Fabrics.  While most of their fabrics are not particularly useful for historical costuming, this particular linen is actually of a decently tight weave and not particularly slubby (unlike certain popular online stores)...on the other hand, it's only available in white, ivory, navy blue, and apparently natural.  I used the white.

Patterns of Fashion 4, Pp. 20
The plain linen shirt mentioned.

The collar was interfaced with a coarse linen to further support and stiffen it; I used the 7.1 oz white or natural from Fabric-store for this, as it was laying around.

Handsewing was carried out with 50/3 and 60/2 white linen threads purchased from Wm. Booth.  Gathering stitches were run with 16/2 so that it wouldn't break so easily when I pulled it to gather.

Pattern: 

Overall, it is fairly simple...all rectangles.  To determine the body panel width I roughly gathered a segment and figured out how many inches would compress down to 1 inch.  The rest is based on neck size--how many inches will fit into half of your collar measurement (make sure to give room for the ruff if that band is being worn under!)?  The Sture pattern I used has the shoulder seams made as a diagonal cutoff from the corners, which removes 2-3 inches from the width from each side.  You can either take that into account or not--since my math gave me something close to  the full width of the fabric (58"?) I just went with that.  Pieces should be long enough to come to your knees, with the front being 1-2 inches shorter than the back.

Patterns of Fashion 4, Pp 69. 
Included to show what I mean by the corners being cut diagonally.

Sleeves are also two rectangles.  Only slightly longer than your full arm measurement (elbow bent, etc.), and I chose to make them roughly 20" wide.  I did not note down the reasoning behind this measure, so it could have been scaled from patterns in PoF4, or just chosen semi-randomly--I generally use something close to that with my tunics.  You don't want it to be too large.  Likewise, there is an underarm gusset as well, which isn't huge--I used a full handspan (5") including seam allowances, since it is close to the period gusset sizes.

Cuff depth was based on the period examples and is (finished) 1.25", but of 4 layers of linen--therefore cut from a strip about 6" wide.  Collar height was either based on period examples or my neck height--I honestly cannot remember.  Doublet collar height may also be a suspect for what I based it on.

THAT SAID, in writing this documentation I have come to the conclusion that I used too much fabric in the body of the garment.  Potentially twice as much as called for.  And am not the only one who has come to that slightly sickening realization after finishing the project, apparently.  I will look into it more at a later time (or someone else will) to avoid getting off track right now, since it'll involve some number crunching.

Seams:

For the most part I used run and fell seams as the simplest and most period.  In a few strategic areas a backstitch may have been used for strength.  The collar and cuffs were attached with a combination of whip-stitch, back-stitch, prick-stitch (a form of backstitch), and stab-stitch (a running stitch varient).

For the felling, while it was all done with an overcast stitch of some kind, I used a couple different varients, trying different things.  I know that for part of it I was using more of a hemstitch to minimize visibility of the finished stitching on the right side--since the right side stitch is in line with the fabric grain, it becomes hard to see.  Then moved to more of a traditional overcast with with a realization that they would not have cared about that in period.  In the end, looking at the shirt, I can't tell where I used which variation for the most part.

One of the rolled hems, on a sleeve opening.

Hems:  The rolled hems at the bosom slit were double folded rather than being a true rolled hem--this was partly because of the thickness of the fabric.  I managed to use a true rolled hem on the sleeve openings.  The whipstitch used to secure it was stitched so that the angled portion was on the right side of the fabric, which provides a little extra strength since it is passing over more threads.  The bottom hem was double folded and sewn with a hemstitch.

Construction:

After determining the size of my body pieces, and tearing them off the yardage, I trimmed the corners to give a diagonal measurement equal to my shoulder measurement (ignoring seam allowances, as the bias cut would stretch slightly).  First mistake...I cut the wrong corners, so that the body pieces were rotated 90*.  Oops.  In the end I just re-cut the correct corner and decided to leave the mistake corners at the bottom hem rather than cutting the hem shorter.


With the pieces cut, the bosom slit was sewn.  It is amazing how deep they are--usually roughly even with the bottom of the sleeve gusset, which is nearly to the sternum.  I used a bone slicker to flatten the hem before sewing.

Sewing the bosom slit.

With that done, I ran two lines of even gathering stitches along the top edges.  I just eyeballed it, rather than measuring and marking out every stitch location as you are conventionally told to do...I can keep my stitching tolerably even, and I rather doubt a shirtmaker historically would have gone to the trouble of marking it either.

More hemming followed--the sleeve openings.  After much reviewing of the extant examples, I found that only a few inches of opening--including the seam allowance--was called for.  The hemming was done the same way as on the bosom slit.  Then gathering again same as before.

Attaching the cuff.

As you can see above, I placed the pre-pressed cuff piece one seam allowance (about 1/2") from the raw edge of the sleeve, evenly spread the gathers, and used a large padstitch to baste the pieces together.  The wrong side was secured with a fine prickstitch (uneven backstitch).  I compressed the pleats slightly with the spritz of water to help them behave and lay straight, folded the right side over, then overcast it with one stitch per gather.  The last step was topstitching with a prick stitch again to compress all the layers.

Before installing the collar, the shoulder seams needed to be sewn and finished.  Simple and straight-forwarded, although I did my best to prevent the fabric from stretching.  I may have used a backstitch for this seam so my stitching wouldn't break if/when the fabric did end up stretching.

Topstitching the collar.

The collar was treated in much the same way, although I sewed it right sides together on the inside and turned the collar rather than topstitching there.  The first step though was to secure the layers of the collar, since I used a coarser linen interlining and needed to keep it from shifting.  A prickstitch about 1/4" from the top edge of the collar was used.

Beginning to attach the collar.  Before turning.

Like the cuffs, after folding the right sides over I sewed it down with a whipstitch...one per gather.  There were a lot of gathers...  I mostly used basting rather than pins to hold everything in place.  I like to use this method because it A) makes for a sturdy seam, and B) helps give definition to the gathers.  I feel they spring a bit better as well.

Gathers partly sewn.

Temporary padstitching in place to hold the curve.

At this point I diverged from my usual process and did some experimenting.  Because of the thickness of the collar, I felt it would have issues curving naturally around my neck, so I decided to try unevenly tensioned stitching to give it a permanent curve. 
I did so by first temporarily padstitching the neckline to help hold the curve in place while I stitched it.

Roughly halfway through topstitching the collar.

Permanent padstitches were /not/ an option--I haven't seen any evidence of them being used in this way.  So I used stab-stitching, working it with the curve held in  the collar by basting stitches and fingers, and varying the tension so that the portions of the stitch on the inside of the collar have more tension than those one the outside.

Finished collar.

It worked.  Finishing the front edges of the collar was the last step there, as well as removing the padstitches (obviously not done when I took the photo).

One nice and neat armpit.

Everything else was nice and easy--just run and fell seams.  Sewing the underarm gussets is always a bit of a pain to get the right seam order, and I can never figure out how to explain it since I'm writing after the fact...other than the gusset gets sewn to the sleeve first, then that assembly goes on the body.

Adorable gusset!

The side seams are only sewn to the low hip level.  At this point is a a tiny gusset, maybe an inch wide.  This helps prevent tearouts at the seam, more than anything.

A hem with an accidental extra corner...

I hemmed and hawed about hemming (hah!...sorry) the open portion of the sides, but in  the end elected to just leave the selvage.    As said in the seams section the bottom hems were done with a fairly wide double folded hem and hemstitching.  You can see the mistake I made in cutting the shoulders way back in the beginning...I thought about it for a while, debated whether to trim the effected bit off to result in a shorter shirt, and ended up just leaving and hemming that bit.  Nobody will see it, anyways, since I'm not in the habit of wandering around camp in just a shirt.

Eyelets!

The final step was to determine how to fasten them.  I thought about finger-weaving tapes and sewing them in place...but in the end I went with the old standby of eyelets.  I also like to use eyelets because I can use the same tie to hold my ruffs on, fastening ruff and collar (likewise cuffs) as one unit.  Mind, I usually seek help with getting dressed at that part...

I used the 16/2 linen thread to sew the eyelets.

What I Learned:  

Not a huge amount, that I can recall.  There was a lot of just what is essentially just practicing my stitching.  That said, I did have to do research on fitting the shirt (somehow missing something important, which I will discuss below), particularly the size of the cuffs and underarm gussets.  Trying out and learning a bit of stitching subtlety in the collar was something which I absolutely loved. 
I made a mental connection that the poofiness of the shirt really helps fill out the shape of the doublet.  Which may or may not be true.

What I would do differently next  time:

Not a whole lot when it comes to construction, although making a shirt with integral ruffles should be on my list.  But for the elephant I've been tiptoeing around:
Glancing through Patterns of Fashion 4 while writing this post, I found that I probably used too much fabric in the body of the garment.  As in, my widths were roughly twice what the period shirts have (and most adult shirts were made with a full width of of fine linen, at around 30").  I will have to crunch numbers to be sure--using garment width as a proportion of the collar measure--but even though I have a slightly larger than assumed collar size, I suspect that the proportions are way off.
Back to the drawing board on that.  I am consoled by the fact that when I asked about this on the Elizabethan Costuming page...I found I was not the only one who had made the "as much fabric as possible" assumption and come to the same realization.

I might also be more careful when cutting the shoulder seams to prevent a mistake there...  But it is more likely that my next shirt will be of a different pattern.  I would also, if I run a line of topstitching along the top edge of the collar, use variable tension there as well to produce a slightly better curve since I'm not 100% happy with the collar.

The final thing, which I just thought of, is I think the diagonal shoulder seam should be shortened by a fair amount.  Even though it was maybe 5" on the cut side (and that particular shoulder measurement on me is roughly 6") it stretched enough that I have a couple inches of shoulder drop, causing the sleeves to be longer than I would like.  The other option would be to include an on-grain reinforcing strip, as you see on 18th century shirts--not completely documentable, but practical, and the Sture shirt I patterned off of does have a supporting strip there...it's just bias cut for some reason.

Historical Accuracy:

Moderate?  Construction and pattern are period (leaving aside the probable miscalculation of the body panels) materials are period--might be a bit heavier of a linen than typical, but lower class shirts might be made of heavier linens...sooo.... 85%?

Time:  

Not a huge amount--I didn't actually hit the One Day mark on this project, even though it's handsewn and took forever to finish.  23 hours, 20 minutes, finished on 3-13.
Going by a daily (modern) wage, I would be looking at around US $275-300 value.

For period cost, going by some 1588 wages it looks like it would be 4d x3 days + value of linen. I used 3.5 yards (roughly) of 30 inch fabric.
I spent a while trying to find prices for linen in Elizabethan England...and failed.  I found it in Holland, but the conversion of guilders to pounds in 1570 was problematic.  The Tudor Tailor has a price for holland cloth--roughly equivalent to my fabric--in 1535 as 3s 4d/ell.  At 2.8 ells of linen, that is 9s 4p for the fabric.  Three days wages come out to 1s, giving 10s/4p for the shirt--roughly 17 days wages.  The National Archives Currency Convertor puts that at just over 120L in 2017, or $146.  Obviously, this isn't completely or even particularly accurate, and is mainly included for interest.

Bibliography:

Patterns of Fashion 4, Janet Arnold.  MacMillan, 2008.  Pages 20, 68-69, primarily.
The Tudor Tailor. Mikhaila, Ninya.  Quite Specific Media, 2006 (re. 2015).  Pp. 36

© John Frey, 2019. The Author of this work retains full copyright for this material.  Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial private research or educational purposes provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.
The two photographs of Patterns of Fashion 4 belong to the copyright holders of that book or image.