Shifts, Selvages and Interpretive Tool

Dearest Friends,
As I mentioned in my last post, when it comes to making shifts it's all about the selvage! The vintage linen that I'm using for my shift is 36" wide,  so cutting out a 30" wide shift leaves a long 6" strip with a wonderful selvage.  I guess I could use the entire 36" width for my shift, but it would really be too big for me.  But what I can do, is use the 6" strip for its selvage so all my gores will have selvage on one edge, making flat felling the intersection of side seams and the top of the gores less of a mess.

So what makes a good selvage? Hard to find these days.  Here are two from vintage linens and here is one that is typical of most of the on-line linen available. As you can see, the on-line linen has holes in it and has a frayed edge.  This is pretty typical, unfortunately, and sometimes when you find a clean edge, it has a colored thread through it.  Aaargh! But don't give up, there are good sources out there, but they are not cheap.  Don't be afraid to spend a couple extra bucks on a garment that will get lots of wear. It will pay you back.

Close-up of selvage from vintage linen

Close-up of selvage from vintage linen - this one is gorgeous!

Close-up of selvage from linen purchased from a popular on-line store

Because this is an undergarment, shifts are usually not an item that reenactresses like to spend lots of time on.  Many women end up buying very coarse linen or cotton shifts with ill-fitting necks and sleeves from sutlers, and this is reasonable when you are getting started.

However, if you are serious about this hobby, I would encourage you to make your first shift. It's a wonderful practice piece for learning basic hand sewing techniques, it will fit better than anything you can buy from one of the large sutlers, but most of all, it's a great interpretive tool. Even if you don't have the confidence to talk to a tourist about a battle, for example, you can always talk to them about how you hand sewed your shift, how your stitches got better over time, how long it took, how you pulled a thread to cut your linen.  You'd be surprised how a newbie can impress just about any tourist with that information!  This is an item you will wear every time you put on your 18th century kit, so make a good shift, it will serve you well in more ways than one!

Your humble and obedient servant,
Mrs. S

P.S. At some point you will forget to pack your shift.  Don't panic, find a tee shift (that you don't mind sacrificing) cut out the neck - since it is a knit, it won't unravel and .... Voila! Emergency shift stand-in.

It's All About the Selvage

Dearest Friends,
When our 18th century foremothers cut out their shifts, they were doing so on 3/4 or 7/8 yard wide linen - in other words 27" or 31 1/2" wide material.  Today our linen fabric is 54" or 60" wide.  So isn't wider better?  Not when it comes to laying out fabric for a shift.  Why?  In one word: SELVAGE!

When making a shift, a good selvage means there's no need to finish an edge of a seam because it won't unravel during washing and wearing, so the more edges that fall along selvages the better off you are - less seams to flat fell. The linen widths sold in the 18th century allowed the maker to to maximize her selvages and not end up with that crazy mish-mash you get when you try flat felling all the seams that end up at that nexus at the top of the gores and side seam -- the bugaboo of every modern shift maker!

Here's an advertisement typical of ads for linen in the 18th century.  This one is from the Massachusetts Spy from June of 1773, advertising 3/4, 7/8 and yard wide linen.

So why can't we get linen in those widths?  Because fabric in the 18th century was woven specifically for how it was going to be used.  It's that way today too, but nowadays most people aren't using linen to make shifts -- linen is primarily used for home decoration where wider is better - think curtains, bed spreads, furniture, etc.  Plus it's more efficient to weave wider, which is another reason our linen isn't as good, but that's a discussion for another day. So if you are lucky enough to find a good piece of 3/4 or 7/8 wide linen with a decent selvage - do not pass go, do not collect $200, buy it!

YH&OS,
Mrs. S.

N.B. Sometimes you can find vintage sheets in narrower widths.  If they are not too old and not too heavy, they will work.  However, sometimes they are just plain old and you end up with a shift that you've spent all kinds of time to make, only to end up with holes in it after a few washings, so be careful when buying vintage textiles for shifts.