A Seamstresses Revenge…
Feb. 27th, 2008 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hsifengBoys and Girls – the moral of this story is: If a nice lady makes you a handsome piece of clothing *for free* and takes the time to hand-sew it for you to boot, don’t trash it and then give it back to them for repairs.
Case in point – my lovely Irish Friend (J) asked me to make him a leine (sp) a few years back. For those who don’t know this style of shirt, it’s the Irish one with the big sleeves that you see in the images of the Irish warriors that survive from the 16th C. I had some period construction ideas for this type of item and hadn’t had a chance to execute them yet as I am no longer playing an Irish character and have no intentions of doing so in the near future.
So J got to be the lucky guinea pig.
What he got was a lovely, rectangularly constructed, hand-sewn, hand dyed leine that looked just like the images provided by his group as reference and was sturdy to boot.
But not as sturdy as J thought it might be apparently...
As many Irish lads will do, J proceeded to carry everything in his long leine sleeves. *EVERYTHING* Note to readers: Really, there is only so much weight that shoulder seams, neck openings, linen and thread can bear before they give up.
So, I took the returned leine out of its bag earlier today and surveyed the damage. The ‘cuffs’ (not really cuffs, just where the fabric of the sleeve ends at the wrist) were cut so that they are selvage material. This is the sturdiest part of a woven length of fabric and also requires no finished edge because it *is* the edge of the cloth and is therefore self-sealed: Completely tattered on both sleeves. The seam where the underside of the sleeves comes together is also splitting and the sleeves themselves are covered in various tears.
The gussets under the arms have a couple of wear spots in them that will need to be reinforced. That is common and not really anything to sniff about.
The split for the neck opening is the worst though: What started out as about a 6” split is now closer to 10” (of torn fabric, no seam).
The bag o’ leine came with some of the original dyed fabric bits that I had thrown in as extras for the dye bath. These are the same linen that the original shirt is made out of and are close to the original color it was dyed. Saffron. Bright, golden-sunshiny, eye bleeding saffron.
The leine is now the same color as my post-it pad.
*evil grin*
The repairs will go as follows.
I have already made some 1” bias tape from the brighter yellow scrap and will use this to reinforce the cuffs. All visible stitches will be hand sewn and I think the resulting contrast will be quite nice.
The holes in the gussets and sleeves will be mended and reinforced with regular shaped patches of the scrap fabric.
The neckline…
I have already resewn the split fabric with my machine on the inside of the garment. Rather than placing a reinforcement patch on the inside of the garment, I am going to place one on the outside (as is seen on one of the men’s shirts at the Museum of Bath that Janet Arnold did a pattern of). The pattern is going to be in the shape of a small heart.
*giggle*
I have no idea if they did ‘shaped’ patches in the period or not – but I couldn’t resist placing the BRIGHT YELLOW HEART right in the middle of J’s chest.
What?!? It is there for a practical purpose….*grin*
Is it *that* bad?
Case in point – my lovely Irish Friend (J) asked me to make him a leine (sp) a few years back. For those who don’t know this style of shirt, it’s the Irish one with the big sleeves that you see in the images of the Irish warriors that survive from the 16th C. I had some period construction ideas for this type of item and hadn’t had a chance to execute them yet as I am no longer playing an Irish character and have no intentions of doing so in the near future.
So J got to be the lucky guinea pig.
What he got was a lovely, rectangularly constructed, hand-sewn, hand dyed leine that looked just like the images provided by his group as reference and was sturdy to boot.
But not as sturdy as J thought it might be apparently...
As many Irish lads will do, J proceeded to carry everything in his long leine sleeves. *EVERYTHING* Note to readers: Really, there is only so much weight that shoulder seams, neck openings, linen and thread can bear before they give up.
So, I took the returned leine out of its bag earlier today and surveyed the damage. The ‘cuffs’ (not really cuffs, just where the fabric of the sleeve ends at the wrist) were cut so that they are selvage material. This is the sturdiest part of a woven length of fabric and also requires no finished edge because it *is* the edge of the cloth and is therefore self-sealed: Completely tattered on both sleeves. The seam where the underside of the sleeves comes together is also splitting and the sleeves themselves are covered in various tears.
The gussets under the arms have a couple of wear spots in them that will need to be reinforced. That is common and not really anything to sniff about.
The split for the neck opening is the worst though: What started out as about a 6” split is now closer to 10” (of torn fabric, no seam).
The bag o’ leine came with some of the original dyed fabric bits that I had thrown in as extras for the dye bath. These are the same linen that the original shirt is made out of and are close to the original color it was dyed. Saffron. Bright, golden-sunshiny, eye bleeding saffron.
The leine is now the same color as my post-it pad.
*evil grin*
The repairs will go as follows.
I have already made some 1” bias tape from the brighter yellow scrap and will use this to reinforce the cuffs. All visible stitches will be hand sewn and I think the resulting contrast will be quite nice.
The holes in the gussets and sleeves will be mended and reinforced with regular shaped patches of the scrap fabric.
The neckline…
I have already resewn the split fabric with my machine on the inside of the garment. Rather than placing a reinforcement patch on the inside of the garment, I am going to place one on the outside (as is seen on one of the men’s shirts at the Museum of Bath that Janet Arnold did a pattern of). The pattern is going to be in the shape of a small heart.
*giggle*
I have no idea if they did ‘shaped’ patches in the period or not – but I couldn’t resist placing the BRIGHT YELLOW HEART right in the middle of J’s chest.
What?!? It is there for a practical purpose….*grin*
Is it *that* bad?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-28 01:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-28 03:39 am (UTC)A good point, but if I covered all the holes in his sleeves with bright yellow heart shaped patches he'd look like the Sunshine Cupid!
Not that you aren't tempting me...*snort*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-28 01:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-28 03:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-28 04:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-28 05:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-28 03:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-28 04:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-28 08:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-28 09:05 pm (UTC)Cherylyn - Inspiring Evil In Others Since 1974...
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-29 01:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-29 06:42 pm (UTC)So at least I am not the *only* evil git out there...*grin*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-16 12:18 am (UTC)Anyhow, excellent book. Not so much on German stuff but on fabrics and colour shades.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-16 12:39 am (UTC)BTW - J has figured out about the heart, he actually thinks it sorta nice. Good thing for him since he seems to have a short list of folks who will sew on his behalf and they all seem to like it!