Late 18th century shift, 2012

My new shift is based Garsault's L'art de la lingère as found from the site La Couturière Parisienne. Several years ago I was very lucky to find a few meters of very narrow linen with nice traditional kind of selvages that I've been saving for a project like this. I looked at the Garsault diagram on the bottom of this page, and I thought the fabric would be perfect for the variation C. I wanted to make the shift in a later period (1780's and 1790's) style, so I made narrow elbow length sleeves. The shift is hand sewn with linen thread and constructed with felled seams except for the side gores that I whip stitched together to achieve a nice selvage join. Hem, neckline and sleeves are finished with a plain hem, no drawstrings. The gores are almost invisible, but they are on the right side in the picture.

Cutting the fabric. 

Late 18th century shift, 2008

Hand sewn from 2.8 oz linen. The neckline is a little too low on the back, but I will make a new one some day.