Hand sewing on men's shirts

[RachelJ]

Hi everyone,

I just completed a shirt in white Kona cotton from the Laughing Moon pattern. I did all of it, just about every stitch, by machine, excepting buttonholes. Can anyone tell me, before I start running off shirts for my husband and boys, what details should be done by hand?  I followed the modifications listed here to make it appropriate for 1860s, and only used a straight stitch.

Thank you!

[Mike S.]

I'd suggest that you get a copy of Thoughts On Men's Shirts In America 1750-1900 by William L. Brown III. This has bountiful detail covering the construction and materials of the 19+ extant examples studied in the book. It is a must have for the historical sewer's library at any rate. 

[Jim_Ruley]

I'd suggest that you get a copy of Thoughts On Men's Shirts In America 1750-1900 by William L. Brown III. This has bountiful detail covering the construction and materials of the 19+ extant examples studied in the book. It is a must have for the historical sewer's library at any rate. 

That book is a great resource for style features, but I don't recall the author identifying hand vs. machine stitching on the various shirts.  It can be very hard to tell well-executed hand stitching from machine work in any case.

I would say anything you can do with a straight stitch is fine.  Certainly the main seams and attaching the sleeves, collar and cuffs.  You can hand-fell the seams, or make French seams (two passes of machine sewing on opposite sides) and whip the resulting edge down.  I'd have to double-check patent dates, but a wide variety of sewing machine attachments came out in the late 1850's, so I expect using a roll hemmer on the tail is OK.

Of course the buttonholes should be worked by hand.  I personally find it easier to close the collar and cuffs on the inside by hand, though I generally follow up by machine topstitching through all layers.

Hope this is helpful,

Jim Ruley

[Mike S.]

Actually the book does describe the stitching for most of the examples via the line diagrams covering each shirt. One can discern hand done stitching in most cases when mention is made of whip stitches, back-stitching and other such techniques that are by their very nature necessarily done only by hand.

Obviously those examples that predate the use of the sewing machine will be all hand done, and those that represent the wider spread availability of mass produced ready wear such as the new "French" fitted shirts may exhibit much more machine stitching. If memory serves me correctly, this is discussed within that emerging timeline in the book as well.

[RachelJ]

Thank you, gentlemen!  I have the book in question, and I've studied it to the point that I'm modifying the shirt pattern beyond what's been listed in SA, but I couldn't tell if the running stitches were all machined or only partly. With the cuffs and collar, LM 107 tells you to sew the cuff first to the inside of the sleeve, then turn and position it, and top stitch it closed, unlike what you would think to do with a woman's garment, so whip stitching isn't an issue, if the pattern is correct. When I studied the cuffs in the book, I was focusing more on buttons, so I'll go back to that and take another look.

As far as the French seams, those will be done by hand, but I put that off because I was more concerned with drafting a boy's pattern while constructing the adult shirt was still fresh in my head. Since we have a small break between events, I haven't rushed to finish the seams.

With the shirt tail, I simply nail-pressed the hem and used a straight stitch.

Again, thank you!

[Rob Bruno]

While my research and viewing original shirts is somewhat limited and not at all conclusive, I have looked a dozen original shirts with many varieties of collars, plackets, lined, unlined, etc only one of them was machine stitched.  All of the rest were completely handsewn.  Some of them had very very tiny stitches and were incredibly well made.  Interesting enough, the machine made one was the of the lowest quality of shirt as far as construction.  Stitch lines that curved and wandered all over the place and many other what I would call flaws compared to the handsewn ones.  The button holes on the machine one where done by hand. 
Just food for thought.
Rob

[Carolann Schmitt]

...or make French seams (two passes of machine sewing on opposite sides) and whip the resulting edge down. 

Jim Ruley

Hi, Jim -

Do you have any more information or documentation on the use of French seams?  My research to date of period sewing manuals and extant garments indicates this was not a commonly used seam in the mid-19th century. It was used c. first quarter of the century and again at the very end of the century.  However, in 4+ decades I've found it on one extant garment - a single undersleeve.

I'm in the process of checking the original shirts in my collection. So far they all have plain or run-and-fell seams, no matter whether they are hand or machine-sewn. 

Inquiring minds would like to know....

Regards,
Carolann

[Jim_Ruley]

Do you have any more information or documentation on the use of French seams? 

No, can't say that I have.  Just seemed (no pun intended) like a sensible alternative.  Hopefully someone will find one so I don't have to cut up my new shirts .

Thanks,

Jim R.

[Elaine Kessinger]

Just so everyone is speaking of the same thing... Are both of you, Miz Carolann and Mr. Jim, speaking of a seam in which one first does a running seam on the fashion side of the garment, then trims that seam, turns it to the inside of the garment and stitches another running seam encasing the raw edges as a "french seam"?

[Jim_Ruley]

Just so everyone is speaking of the same thing... Are both of you, Miz Carolann and Mr. Jim, speaking of a seam in which one first does a running seam on the fashion side of the garment, then trims that seam, turns it to the inside of the garment and stitches another running seam encasing the raw edges as a "french seam"?

That's what I call it - over to Carolann...

[Carolann Schmitt]

That's what I call it, also.
Carolann

[Jessamyn]

I can't find any reference to french seams in the Google Books Advanced Search before 1882. That source also lists it as a "turned-up seam" (as opposed to a "turned-down seam," which is apparently a felled seam), but running that through as a search term earlier didn't help.