Historically Inaccurate Hemd

Posted on November 17, 2025
Tags: madeof:atoms, craft:sewing

A woman wearing a white shirt with a tall, thick collar with lines of blue embroidery, closed in the front with small buttons; the sleeves are wide and billowing, gathered at the cuffs with more blue embroidery. She's keeping her hands at the waist so that the shirt, which reaches to mid thigh, doesn't look like a shapeless tent from the neck down.

After cartridge pleating and honeycombing, I was still somewhat in the mood for that kind of fabric manipulation, and directing my internet searches in that vague direction, and I stumbled on this: https://katafalk.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/patternmaking-for-the-kampfrau-hemd-chemise/

Now, do I want to ever make myself a 16th century German costume, especially a kampfrau one? No! I’m from lake Como! Those are the enemies who come down the Alps pillaging and bringing the Black Death with them!

Although I have to admit that at times during my day job I have found the idea of leaving everything to go march with the Jägermonsters attractive. You know, the exciting prospective of long days of march spent knitting sturdy socks, punctuated by the excitement of settling down in camp and having a chance of doing lots of laundry. Or something. Sometimes being a programmer will make you think odd things.

Anyway, going back to the topic, no, I didn’t need an historically accurate hemd. But I did need a couple more shirts for daily wear, I did want to try my hand at smocking, and this looked nice, and I was intrigued by the way the shaping of the neck and shoulder worked, and wondered how comfortable it would be.

And so, it had to be done.

I didn’t have any suitable linen, but I did have quite a bit of cotton voile, and since I wasn’t aiming at historical accuracy it looked like a good option for something where a lot of fabric had to go in a small space.

At first I considered making it with a bit less fabric than the one in the blog, but then the voile was quite thin, so I kept the original measurement as is, only adapting the sleeve / sides seams to my size.

The same woman, from the back. This time the arms are out, so that the big sleeves show better, but the body does look like a tent.

With the pieces being rectangles the width of the fabric, I was able to have at least one side of selvedge on all seams, and took advantage of it by finishing the seams by simply folding the allowances to one sides so that the selvedge was on top, and hemstitching them down as I would have done with a folded edge when felling.

Also, at first I wanted to make the smocking in white on white, but then I thought about a few hanks of electric blue floss I had in my stash, and decided to just go with it.

The initial seams were quickly made, then I started the smocking at the neck, and at that time the project went on hold while I got ready to go to DebConf. Then I came back and took some time to get back into a sewing mood, but finally the smocking on the next was finished, and I could go on with the main sewing, which, as I expected, went decently fast for a handsewing project.

detail of the smocking in progress on the collar, showing the lines of basting thread I used as a reference, and the two in progress zig-zag lines being worked from each side.

While doing the diagonal smocking on the collar I counted the stitches to make each side the same length, which didn’t completely work because the gathers weren’t that regular to start with, and started each line from the two front opening going towards the center back, leaving a triangle with a different size right in the middle. I think overall it worked well enough.

Then there were a few more interruptions, but at last it was ready! just as the weather turned cold-ish and puffy shirts were no longer in season, but it will be there for me next spring.

I did manage to wear it a few times and I have to say that the neck shaping is quite comfortable indeed: it doesn’t pull in odd ways like the classical historically accurate pirate shirt sometimes does, and the heavy gathering at the neck makes it feel padded and soft.

The same shirt belted (which looks nicer); one hand is held out to show that the cuff is a bit too wide and falls down over the hand.

I’m not as happy with the cuffs: the way I did them with just honeycombing means that they don’t need a closure, and after washing and a bit of steaming they lie nicely, but then they tend to relax in a wider shape. The next time I think I’ll leave a slit in the sleeves, possibly make a different type of smocking (depending on whether I have enough fabric) and then line them like the neck so that they are stable.

Because, yes, I think that there will be another time: I have a few more project before that, and I want to spend maybe another year working from my stash, but then I think I’ll buy some soft linen and make at least another one, maybe with white-on-white smocking so that it will be easier to match with different garments.