This is Folkwear 117, the Croatian Shirt.
I bought the pattern intending to make it in the dress length, but I didn’t have anything like enough of this cotton lawn, so I made a rather short shirt instead. I started this project about eight months ago, and then it was put to one side while I was working on sewing for other people. At long last, I’m really pleased to have it finished.
The fabric is a lightweight cotton lawn and the buttons are vintage, from one of my many inherited button tins. The close-up of the buttons and tucks is the most accurate for colour, but that still doesn’t show how bright this shirt is!
The construction is a mixture of ancient and modern. All of the long seams and the hem have been serged, for speed and strength. The pin tucks were all stitched down by machine as well. The yoke, collar and cuffs are all finished by hand. All of the fasteners (there are poppers underneath the buttons) have been hand sewn too.
I think this is the approach I’m going to take when I put together my prototype dressing-up smock for the museum. Serged seams, especially under the arms, will make a smock far more resistant to tearing when it’s being taken on and off in a hurry by a class full of enthusiastic children. But the finishing will all be done by hand, as will the smocking and embroidery, so they’ll get an idea of what an authentic period garment would have been like.