The media in this post is not displayed to visitors. To view it, please log in.
Posted on May 25, 2025
Tags: madeof:atoms, craft:sewing, FreeSoftWear, GNU Terry Pratchett
After cartridge pleating, the next fabric manipulation technique I wanted to try was smocking, of the honeycombing variety, on a shirt.
My current go-to pattern for shirts is the 1880 menswear oneI have on my website: I love the fact that most of the fabric is still cut as big rectangles, but the shaped yoke and armscyes make it significantly more comfortable than the earlier style where most of the shaping at the neck was done with gathers into a straight collar.
In my stash I had a cut of purple-blue hopefully cotton [#cotton] I had bought for a cheap price and used for my first attempt at anhistorically accurate pirate / vampire shirt that has now become by official summer vaccine jab / blood test shirt (because it has the long sleeves I need, but they are pretty easy to roll up to give access to my arm.
That shirt tends to get out of the washing machine pretty wearable even without ironing, which made me think it could be a good fabric for something that may be somewhat hard to iron (but also made me suspicious about the actual composition of the fabric, even if it feels nice enough even when worn in the summer).
Of course I wanted some honeycombing on the front, but I was afraid that the slit in the middle of it would interfere with the honeycombing and gape, so I decided to have the shirt open in an horizontal line at the yoke.
I added instructions to the pattern pagefor how I changed the opening in the front, basically it involved finishing the front edge of the yoke, and sewing the honeycombed yoke to a piece of tape with snaps.
Another change from the pattern is that I used plain rectangles for the sleeves, and a square gusset, rather than the new style tapered sleeve , because I wanted to have more fabric to gather at the wrist. I did the side and sleeve seams with a hem + whipstitch method rather than a felled seam, which may have helped, but the sleeves went into the fitted armscyes with no issue.
I think that if (yeah, right. when) I’ll make another sleeve in this style I’ll sew it into the side seam starting 2-3 cm lower than the place I’ve marked on the pattern for the original sleeve.
I also used a row of honeycombing on the back and two on the upper part of the sleeves, instead of the gathering, and of course some rows to gather the cuffs.
The honeycombing on the back was a bit too far away from the edge, so it’s a bit of an odd combination of honeycombing and pleating that I don’t hate, but don’t love either. It’s on the back, so I don’t mind. On the sleeves I’ve done the honeycombing closer to the edge and I’ve decided to sew the sleeve as if it was a cartridge pleated sleeve, and that worked better.
Because circumstances are still making access to my sewing machine more of a hassle than I’d want it to be, this was completely sewn by hand, and at a bit more than a month I have to admit that near the end it felt like it had been taken forever. I’m not sure whether it was the actual sewing being slow, some interruptions that happened when I had little time to work on it, or the fact that I’ve just gone through a time when my brain kept throwing new projects at me, and I kept thinking of how to make those. Thanks brain.
Even when on a hurry to finish it, however, it was still enjoyable sewing, and I think I’ll want to do more honeycombing in the future.
Anyway, it’s done! And it’s going straight into my daily garment rotation, because the weather is getting hot, and that means it’s definitely shirt time.
blog.trueelena.org/blog/2025/0…
Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • •Ho appena iniziato a cucire a mano uno zaino, quindi non ho bisogno di un altro progetto di cucito a mano, vero?
Ecco…
Con lo zaino sono ad un punto in cui ho bisogno di pensare, ed oggi non è cosa, e poi è un tipo di cucito abbastanza fisicamente impegnativo, per cul il piano era di avere qualcosa di meno faticoso con cui alternarlo.
Avrei potuto fare qualcosa di facile e veloce? ovviamente no :D
E invece avere a che fare con quattro metri e mezzo di stoffa, orlarla e raccoglierla tutta in qualcosa come 36 cm? Più nel mio stile :D
Quindi ho deciso di farmi una camicia seguendo le istruzioni per una camicia tedesca del XVI secolo, usando però del voile di cotone e accorciandola leggermente in modo da poterla infilare nei jeans alla bisogna.
katafalk.wordpress.com/2012/06…
Status attuale: fare tutto l'orlo superiore.
#cucito #cucitoAMano
rag. Gustavino Bevilacqua reshared this.
Whiskey a gogo
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • • •Sensitive content
Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Whiskey a gogo • •rag. Gustavino Bevilacqua reshared this.
Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • •this afternoon I was too tired to think, so instead of working on the backpack I kept hemming the neck edge, and I'm past the two thirds point.
The next step should be marking the points for the neck gathering, but depending on how the backpack is going I may start to sew the bottom of the side seams so that I can also hem the bottom edge any time my brain wants to remain off.
Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • •oggi pomeriggio ero troppo stanca per pensare, quindi anziché lavorare sullo zaino sono andata avanti a orlare il collo, e ho superato i due terzi.
In teoria il prossimo passo sarebbe segnare i punti per arricciare il collo, ma a seconda di come va con lo zaino potrei iniziare a cucire la parte in basso dei fianchi, in modo da poter fare anche l'orlo in fondo nel caso in cui il mio cervello abbia bisogno di rimanere spento.
rag. Gustavino Bevilacqua reshared this.
Elena ``of Valhalla''
Unknown parent • •@Kermode I know, I am :D
but that thing looks so cool!