Shirt - a quickie at top speed. the neck/ collar...

Cartridge-pleats, to control the fullness - just gathering would make it puff out. It should lie a lot flatter across the back this way, although it isn't ever going to lie dead flat like a modern shirt - the fullness needs to be here to create the shape for the neckline.

Underarm gussets and sideseams

A quick post, so please ask if it isn't clear - mainly photos to illustrate the last post, on underarm gussets and sideseam gussets.

Right.

You put in the square underarm gussets sewn so that one side is seamed to the body-front immediately below the sleeve; the adjacent side is sewn to the sleeve-front; the next side is sewn to the sleeve-back and the final side is sewn to the body-back.

First three pics show this at various stages - the last one shows an antique shirt of mine which is from around 1780-1820 I think. It has a smaller underarm gusset but exactly the same principle. Although a lot neater than mien are...

Then sew the side-seam as a felled seam (ALL seams are felled, you should have no raw edges anywhere).
Leave a split at the bottom, which you hem each edge of. You can add a triangular gusset to this as well if you like, partly to prevent the seam splitting further up and partly to help hide the bodge-point that I always seem to have! I haven't done this yet on the shirt I'm making, but here is the 1780s one's side-seam and gusset. A square folded diagonally and just fitted round the point where it changes from felled side-seam to two hemmed edges.

The large-focus pic is the outside and the close-up is the inside. I've added an overview just for the sake of it!
You can see how the seamstress two centuries ago cleverly offset the square gusset a tiny bit so more of it is on the inside and only the tiniest tip of one corner is visible outside for neatness's sake.

The diagram is just a quick one - to change from side-seam to hemmed-edges one piece just goes from being folded under (shown in green) to being flded under twice, very simple.
The other, shown in red, has to go from being folded upwards to being folded under twice, so I usually make a small snip with scissors.

Shirt/ Shift Part Two: Sleeves

Having cut out your pattern pieces, you now start actually making the thing!

The link I gave before gives instructions which you can follow if you like. Mine are roughly the same, just in a slightly different order plus I don't cut any shaping for the neck-hole.

I start with the sleeves.

If you cut the body in one, then fold it in half so the fold lies from shoulder to shoulder and mark the halfway point on each side with a pin (if you put the pin in, out, in and out then it stays better than just putting it in and out once each).
If you cut the body in two pieces, as I have done, then you will need to do a short piece of the seam along the shoulder first. Lay the body-front on top of the body-back. Overlap them slightly so that the back shows for about 1.25 cm or half an inch above the top of the body-front. Pin about 6 inches or 15cm down at each side and in the middle, to hold the pieces in alignment while you work. Now fold over the body-back edge just a bit, about 1/4 inch or just under 1cm. Press the fold firmly with finger and thumb and it will stay (linen is useful stuff!).
Now fold that down on top of the body-front, and pin it through the folded body-back ad the body-front (try not to pin it through all thicknesses to the body-back further down!). Take out the holding-pins if it helps. The folded edge should be about 1/4-1/2 an inch or 1-1.5 cm from the raw edge of the body-front. Sew along the fold. I just use a running stitch. Now turn it inside out and you will see the raw edge of the body-front; fold this under and sew it as above. This can be with a running stitch or with a whip-stitch. I use a running-stitch on the main parts, so what I end up with is a double-line of running-stitch. It's like the seams on a pair of jeans. It's extremely strong which is why running stitch is fine and you don't need back-stitch.
The seam is reversible, looks the same each side, and has no raw edges showing (raw edges are structurally weak).

Sew approx 3" or 7cm of the shoulder-seam and just leave the thread hanging (you'll come back to it later; all you're doing jsut now is making the two body pieces into one so you can put the sleeves in).

Now take the sleeve-piece and fold it in half. If you have it longer than it is wide, check to see which is the lengthways and which is the widthways direction! Fold it lengthways and pinch the fold at the shoulder-end to mark it. Now align that with the shoulder-seam on the body, or with the fold on the body if you cut it in one. Fold over the edge of the body and pin it onto the sleeve as described above. Stitch that, then turn it inside-out and fold under the raw edge and stitch that.

Now repeat for the opposite side. You now have a shirt or shift body with both sleeves sewn on.

Shirt/ Shift Part One: cutting the pattern

I'm making a new shift so I'm going to try and remember to keep photographing throughout and make a rough guide to making a shirt or shift. There are a few out there already, but I thought I'd just add my tuppenceworth.

This isn't a kind of The Only Way Is This Way method... it's just how I do it. You don't have to look at many surviving examples to work out that there are some things they have in common and some that are one-offs.
Generally speaking, it's usually a better idea in re-enactment to stick with the 'things in common' and avoid the 'one-offs'.

Right, the pattern. This is a combined pattern, largely from the extremely good site http://www.fabrics-store.com/first.php?goto=ec&menu=ec&mn=tm&m=kess_shirforallseason but with a few bits of background from spending much time looking at extant examples, one linen shirt I own and wear which is pre-1800 (no idea how far pre-1800, could be 1640s for all I know! I think it's around 1780-1800 though on probability) and from spending time over Janet Arnold's superb book Patterns of Fashion 4: Linen

The photograph shows the pieces cut or torn and laid out ready to sew. Every pattern-piece for a shirt can be torn along the linen's grain which avoids having to own expensive scissors. In a shift, there is one diagonal line which would need cutting but a sharp knife down a fold will just about do this.

These pattern pieces don't include the "skirt gores", triangular pieces let into the side-seams of the shift. That's because until I've made some of it, I won't know the measurement for those. I'll calculate it and cut it later on.

The body-pieces are 45" long for this as it is a shift. For a shirt I use 35-40" length.

The Pieces:

Body x2 27" wide and as above 35-40" long for a shirt, 45" for a shift. I wear my shifts short - Arnold gives various patterns for shifts which are 50+" in length.

Sleeve x2 24" long and 20" wide. I use the selvedge at the shoulder-seam, so I can put both sleeves in the right way round, rather than one being 24" long and one being 20" long and the same dilemma in width! If your arms are short or you are very bulky, change the dimensions.

Sleeve gussets x2 9" square but if you have a scrap of linen that gives you ones 8" square, that's fine... it's to give the ease of movement without ripping the place where the sleeve-seam, side-seam and two ends of the shoulder-seam join in a crossroads.

Neck gussets x2 these are 3 1/2" square and just fit into the sides of the neck-slit to reinforce an area of stress. Some shirts exist without these and often you can see where it's started splitting along and needed repaired.

Cuffs x2 half the width of the collar (see below) and as long as fits easily round your forearm/ wrist. I adjust them in the making as it is very annoying to have a too-large cuff sliding down over your knuckles. They are folded lengthways in the finished version.

Collar x1 The only piece there is only one of. I cut mine 6" by 17", folded lengthways.



You can see these all laid out in the photo, with the body top-right and the sleeve top-left, and smaller pieces below. I've ironed the fold into the collar and cuffs along the line of the fabric's grain.