Men's Pirate Shirt

Finished January 20, 2020




I used a tan/ecru colored cotton muslin for this shirt. 

The source I used seems to have gotten the pattern from "Tidings from the 18th Century" by Beth Gilgun. 
I made the body a bit smaller, shortened the sleeves, and made the cuffs less around too. 

First I cut the horizontal neck cut and the vertical front slit. Then finished the edges of the slit area (with a small rolled hem) and stitched a small vaguely triangular patch to the bottom of the slit to reinforce that area. 

Next I added the neck gussets to the ends of the horizontal neck cut. I kept the gussets as squares and simply folded them in half (which formed the edge closest to the center of the shirt), and stitched the two non-fold sides (folding the raw edges inside the side-shirt-side pile) to the shirt. This was a rather fiddly step, and I did have to pin and re-pin and double check both sides to make sure everything was where it needed to be. 

I stitched the shoulder strips on top of the shoulder section of the shirt, over the neck gussets. They were maybe an inch or so long, so I decided to start pinning them from the neck side and cut off the little bit extra that was over the side/arm hole. 



Next I put in the collar, just to finish off the neck area. This was a bit fiddly, as I stitched the collar first then sewed it to the shirt (with the shirt inside the collar along with the raw edges of the collar). The pinned-gathering technique I use resulted in nice looking gathering of the shirt. I sewed the collar first to the right side of the shirt, then flipped it upright and stitched it to the inside of the shirt. 

The sleeves went very well. I first stitched the gussets to the sleeves and then the rest of the sleeve, and flat felled those seams. Then I pinned the sleeves into the armholes. I concentrated the gathering to the top quarter to third of the armhole. After trying on the shirt and adjusting the length needed, I added the cuffs to the bottom of the sleeves. This went similarly to how the collar was stitched on - pin the sleeves to the cuff (pinned-gathering), stitch the right side of the sleeve, flip the cuff over, and stitch the inside of the cuff. I then added buttons (1 per cuff) and buttonholes (again 1 per cuff). 

Next was to finish the side seams, hem the bottom edge and the small slit I left in the bottom of the side seams, and decide how to close the neck. I ended up simply adding a button and buttonhole. 

Overall this turned out quite nicely! It is big and billowy, without completely drowning me. 

body: 30"x60" with the neck cut (horizontally) being 15" long and the front slit (vertically from the neck cut) being about 8" long (finished at the bottom with a small patch)
sleeve: 24" x 20"
collar: 6" x 19"
arm gusset: 7" x 7"
cuffs: 10" x 3"
shoulder strips: 2" x 11"
neck gusset: 4"x4"

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