After I went to bed last night, I admit to being plagued by a few doubts on how my smock was going to turn out. Creating a pattern on your own, even with some direction in mind, can be a little daunting. What added to my doubts was that I have very little linen to work with. If I make a mistake, I will have to order some more and then wait to work on my project. So in order to give myself a little confidence boost, I decided some additional samples were in order. Test samples also appeal to my engineering brain so I made them with pleasure. The first thing I wanted to do was to try out a worked bar tack at the bottom of the neck slit for my high necked smock. Elizabethans used these to reinforce the neck slit against tearing. As anyone who has torn open a bag of chips part way and then later has had the bag continue to rip open from the wear of hands reaching inside to grab chips, knows that the interior of a crack is a weak spot. Tailors and seamstresses in the Renaissance were awar
Sewing and costuming blog.