RyanAK
City-dweller
Once scalped…
Posts: 973
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Post by RyanAK on Jun 20, 2022 14:07:12 GMT -7
Pattern? Well… I guess I sorta used the shirt pattern in Tidings… altered for size to fit over clothes. Main deviation was a wider body to place shoulder-arm seam where it needs to be while wearing a coat and bigger arm gussets to aid in donning and doffing. I used the really excellent photos and descriptions in Rural Pennsylvania Clothing for some of the stitching details. If needed, I’d be happy to take some pics and post.
Thanks for the compliment!
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Post by hawkeyes on Jun 20, 2022 16:14:58 GMT -7
Pattern? Well… I guess I sorta used the shirt pattern in Tidings… altered for size to fit over clothes. Main deviation was a wider body to place shoulder-arm seam where it needs to be while wearing a coat and bigger arm gussets to aid in donning and doffing. I used the really excellent photos and descriptions in Rural Pennsylvania Clothing for some of the stitching details. If needed, I’d be happy to take some pics and post. Thanks for the compliment! I'd certainly appreciate that. I've got some linen laying around and I'd like to make myself and my boy an overshirt.
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RyanAK
City-dweller
Once scalped…
Posts: 973
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Post by RyanAK on Jun 20, 2022 16:36:30 GMT -7
You bet. I’ll do a recap and make a summary of this 14! page thread.
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RyanAK
City-dweller
Once scalped…
Posts: 973
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Post by RyanAK on Jun 21, 2022 11:47:26 GMT -7
I’ve finished buttons and buttonholes, the bottom hem, the side split reinforcements (buttonhole stitch and bar tacks) and I’m working on the arm scythes. These seem to be called shoulder reinforcements, and they do strengthen that seam a bit. But more than that, the cover the raw edges of the sleeve gathers on the inside of the shirt. This is just one of those details that take a lot of time to do and make an authentic shirt. The stitches on the body side of the arm scythe must be very small to disappear into the fabric of the shirt and not show a line of stitching doing (apparently) nothing when viewed from the right side of the shirt. This isn’t clear in the books I have, but Burnley & Trowbridge had a good video on this. I’ve never seen a commercial period shirt, so I’m not sure how they handle this. These pics are the inside of the shirt at the sleeve/shoulder seam.
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RyanAK
City-dweller
Once scalped…
Posts: 973
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Post by RyanAK on Jun 21, 2022 16:53:43 GMT -7
Redid the neck opening reinforcement with a buttonhole stitch and a bar tack. This frock is now DONE! Except for one small thing yet…
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Post by spence on Jun 21, 2022 19:09:20 GMT -7
Before you get away, clear up one thing for me, please. Looking at the pictures of your smock I can't quite figure it out. Is there a seam from collar to sleeve along the top of the shoulder? In one photo it appears there might be a reinforcing band there, or...? The reason I ask is that on my smock the back and front are both of the same piece of linen folded, then a hole cut for the head. To make that area conform to your body a bit better there are gussets on both sides of the collar, like this. You use the term 'armscythes', and I can't find a definition. Are you referring to what I call a gusset in the armpit? Spence
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RyanAK
City-dweller
Once scalped…
Posts: 973
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Post by RyanAK on Jun 21, 2022 19:37:24 GMT -7
Before you get away, clear up one thing for me, please. Looking at the pictures of your smock I can't quite figure it out. Is there a seam from collar to sleeve along the top of the shoulder? In one photo it appears there might be a reinforcing band there, or...? The reason I ask is that on my smock the back and front are both of the same piece of linen folded, then a hole cut for the head. To make that area conform to your body a bit better there are gussets on both sides of the collar, like this. <button disabled="" class="c-attachment-insert--linked o-btn--sm">Attachment Deleted</button> You use the term 'armscythes', and I can't find a definition. Are you referring to what I call a gusset in the armpit? Spence Darn autocorrect! How many times dit it do it to me that I didn’t catch?! Armscye. It’s a real word, honest. In tailoring, apparently, it’s the shape of the armhole or the material and seams that makeup the armhole. That’s how B&T use it at least, and those ladies are great about period terms. ‘Armscythes’ sound painful. 😬 The body of the shirt is one piece with the neck and front opening cut in. Like yours, mine had the triangular neck gussets. Rural Pennsylvania Clothing shows the optional shoulder reinforcement as prevalent on c.mid-18th common shirts. Apparently I didn’t have enough stitching to do already, so I added them. They run from the shoulder/sleeve seam, up the centerline of the shoulder, over the neck gusset, and gets sewn into the collar. I’ll get a pic tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s a previously unpublished paparazzi photo of some guy in a big shirt. And a crop showing (poorly) the reinforcement. It’s about 1-1/4” after the edges are folded under.
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Post by spence on Jun 21, 2022 19:50:40 GMT -7
Thanks, that answers all my questions. You did a good job on that smock. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have mine. More so, I'm sure, mine was off the rack. The paparazzi are hard up these days, aren't they? Spence
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RyanAK
City-dweller
Once scalped…
Posts: 973
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Post by RyanAK on Jun 21, 2022 20:18:01 GMT -7
Thanks, Spence. It was truly a pleasure. One more special little thing to finish late tomorrow and it’ll be complete. Then on to the next project.
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RyanAK
City-dweller
Once scalped…
Posts: 973
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Post by RyanAK on Jun 21, 2022 20:19:10 GMT -7
Before I start something else, I WILL do a recap for ya, Hawk’!
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Post by brokennock on Jun 22, 2022 5:20:12 GMT -7
I think you did a great job here. I am curious about something, and my question is in no way a criticism of your work or research into this garment. You did a great amount of research into shirts and their construction for this smock. Did you get any indication that all of the little details of different reinforcements here and there and similar details were used in all or most shirts regardless of intended use? Would all of this have been done for a garment meant to take life's abuse as a sacrificial diode in place of one's better clothing?
Even if all these little details would not have been done for a simple work smock, you did well on them and got a chance to practice the methods on a garment meant to be expendable.
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RyanAK
City-dweller
Once scalped…
Posts: 973
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Post by RyanAK on Jun 22, 2022 10:08:30 GMT -7
I think you did a great job here. I am curious about something, and my question is in no way a criticism of your work or research into this garment. You did a great amount of research into shirts and their construction for this smock. Did you get any indication that all of the little details of different reinforcements here and there and similar details were used in all or most shirts regardless of intended use? Would all of this have been done for a garment meant to take life's abuse as a sacrificial diode in place of one's better clothing? Even if all these little details would not have been done for a simple work smock, you did well on them and got a chance to practice the methods on a garment meant to be expendable. Thanks for the compliment, pal. This is something I’ve given a bit of thought to. Surviving period shirts are rare enough to find for study, and I’ve yet to come across a period frock. The best we have to go on are what images can be located and the common conjecture that these were “basically a big shirt”. My thoughts initially ran like this: I work outside and on heavy industrial projects for a living. Long ago I decided I would invest in well made work and outdoor gear, and it’s served me well. Some of the things I own for work are embarrassingly expensive, but I can say without hesitation that I’m money WAY ahead by doing things this way. For example… life is rough enough that I was going through a Carhartt coat each year. My Filson cost 3x as much, but I’m on year 8. Now was period thinking the same? Hard to say. However… after having made this and learning how much work goes into one, I’d personally make sure it was made as well as possible to last as long as possible for the use it’s going to see. Were period values the same? Hard to say. That’s the point of my signature line. These objects and skills lead to better understanding, not just knowledge. I highly recommend everyone make a shirt. Ha.
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Post by spence on Jun 22, 2022 16:15:18 GMT -7
RyanAK said, "Surviving period shirts are rare enough to find for study, and I’ve yet to come across a period frock. The best we have to go on are what images can be located and the common conjecture that these were “basically a big shirt”."
The same is true of the 'hunting shirt'. I suspect very few in the hobby are aware of how few original hunting shirts survive, and how very little what we in the hobby have accepted as the "typical' hunting shirt resembles any of them. There are quite a few written descriptions of them, and also several paintings, but even those are generally so different that establishing a "common" hunting shirt is almost impossible. I've collected descriptions of them reaching to mid-thigh and down to the heels, held closed only by the belt or sash and held closed by "two or three buttons or hooks", with one cape or two, with and without pockets, and the color? OMG: white, dark coloured, brown, gray, black, yellow, green, blackish, cloth colored, olive, light lye colour, brown with red cuffs and collar, color of old leaves, ash-coloured, and blue with red fringe.
I've come to the conclusion that in the day they were free to interpret what they thought a hunting shirt was, and personalized them to the wearer. Consider the Michael Crowe hunting shirt of 1799 or those described by Wm. Blane in the Ohio Valley in the mid-1820s. Not the same garment.
What do you suppose this one would have looked like?
The Pennsylvania Gazette June 7, 1770 "....had on, when he went away, an old brown coat, wanting sleeves, a brown sleeveless vest, 2 coarse shirts, old coarse trowsers, old leather breeches, and an old fur hat ; he took with him a coarse sheet, of which it is supposed he will make a hunting shirt; his clothing is meally, having attended a mill since last fall;"
I've never heard of a surviving farmers/carters smock, but I imagine most of them were made by Mrs. Farmer/Mrs. Carter who felt free to customize according to need and to her skills.
Spence
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Post by artificer on Jun 23, 2022 6:41:27 GMT -7
Spence,
I've only seen maybe 3 to 4 period drawings/engravings of farmer's smocks, but it seems to me all of them were fit much looser than your solid outer garment. I wonder if yours is more akin to a waggoneer's smock, in the period?
Gus
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Post by spence on Jun 23, 2022 7:36:39 GMT -7
You may well be right, Gus. I tend to think of the two garments as being essentially the same, but that's probably not the case. I notice that carters smocks/frocks were frequently mentioned in connection to militia groups, but are seldom described.
"I wish my Lord his Majesty may be informed that of the fifty men [who] escorted me, I had not occasion to reprehend one officer or man during the time they were on that command; what they wanted in discipline they made up by a strict observance and willing obedience to all orders delivered to them. Each man had his rifle gun, and their general uniform and appointments were a carters frock, indian match clouts (in lieu of breeches) moccasons (for shoes) and woolen or leather leggins, the latter were necessary to prevent the bite of the snakes of which we saw a great plenty."
Spence
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