Swashbuckling Shirts

Shirts Required

Perhaps no single garment evokes the spirit of the Renaissance better than this full bodied shirt. The simplest costume is made of pants and a shirt. Now, you can buy the appropriate shirts directly off the Web if you wish. Or, you can make one yourself, like I do (showing to the right.)

My shirts are made from scratch, but one quick way to make your costume shirt is to get a very full cut, long-sleeved shirt and wear it under a jerkin. Don't worry about the collar. Just cut it off and leave the band. Make sure you trim the edge close and clean.

If you buy a tall-size shirt, the sleeves should be too long for your arms. This is a good thing, since you can use that extra length to make the sleeves look fuller. To add a nice touch, add a ruffle to both the collar and cuffs. This is not a lacy ruffle, no. Really, it's a box pleated strip of fabric that sticks straight up or out.
	Find something that cloesly matches the shirt in color and opacity, cut two strips twice the width of the neck band plus a little seam allowance on one edge and sew them together. Trim the seam allowance, turn it right sides out and press it flat, then box pleat it evenly all around the neckband, so that 1/2 the width sticks up. Top stitch it in place carefully so the stitches are rather well blended with existing lines. Do the same with the cuffs - same width and all that. Replace the old cuff button with a fancy one, widening the button hole if you need.
Square off the bottom of the shirt, once again stitching down the raw edge. Now you don't have to tuck the shirtail into your pants, and you will have a reasonably authentic costume piece. The longer the shirt - I should say the taller the shirt - the better the coverage you will get. This method is especially effective for children, since they can wear an adult's shirt.

To MAKE a simple shirt, and I mean SIMPLE, double over a length of fabric that drops from where the neck joins the shoulders down to your fingertips.

Have another person help with this. Hold the fabric up to your neck and mark off the width. Draw a perfect semicircle on the front of the shirt using half the distance between these marks as the radius. The back of the neck will be an eliptical line 1/3 to 1/2 that radius, since the back of the neck is flatter than the front. So you will have a rather egg-shaped neck hole after you cut it out. Cut a slit about 4 inches long down the middle of the front, with a little Y-shape at the bottom.

Now lay the fabric flat and trace the neck hole onto another piece of fabric, including the slit. On that new piece of fabric, add 1 1/2 inches all around, and this will be the facing for the neck hole. Believe me, this is the most complicated part of this job, and it's super simple. Sew the facing to the neck hole and turn under, top stitch down, and sew in button holes for laces.

For the sleeves, cut two panels 37 1/4 inches wide reaching the length of your arm from the shoulder to the knuckles, plus 1 1/4 inches. Pleat or gather one 37 1/4 inch side until it is 13 1/4 inches wide. Sew these onto the shirt body evenly on the fold line, and turn under. try the unfinished shirt on and adjust the sleeves so the edge is on the knuckles, then mark where the wrist is. Sew four to six 1/4 inch wide belt loops along this line to be drawstring carriers.

Sew the shirt with the right sides facing out at 3/8" from the edge up the sleeve and down the sides, and trim the edge to 1/4 inch. Then turn the shirt inside out and sew up the same seams 1/4 inch, hiding the first seam. This is a french seam, and is very strong. Now finish the hem of the sleeve by turning the raw edge under twice, 1/4 inch each time. Finish the bottom hem. Run a drawstring through the carriers on the wrist and pull snug around the wrist. Tie with a bow and you are finished.