Starching a Shirt Collar

I never posted finished pictures of my Victorian shirt because I needed to starch the collar and cuffs. In the past I've simply mixed corn starch with water and used that (and more on that method later in this post), but I wanted to think about using other methods.

I have a book from 1907 titled Henley's Twentieth Century Formulas, Recipes and Processes, which in the manner of manuals from that time continues with a rather long subtitle: "Containing ten thousand selected household, workshop and scientific forumlas, trade secrets, chemical recipes, processes and money saving ideas." This sort of book is common for the era, and is similar to Beeton's Book of House Management. It describes how to do just about anything one might need to do around the house - and I mean everything. From laboratory methods to making adhesives and laundry soaps, to alloying metals, to making coloured paints, to mixing concrete, to making beer, this book has it all. Need to know how to repair your meerschaum pipe? This book will tell you how. Need to drill glass? This book will tell you how. Need to make dynamite, smokeless gunpowder, or blasting powder? You got it - this book will tell you how.

One problem with many of the recipes is that I imagine many of the chemical ingredients required for the recipes aren't as easily obtained these days. For instance, if I want to cure my canary's asthma (no joke, this is in there) I need:

Tincture capsicum, 5 drachms
Spirits chloroform, 90 minims
Iron citrate, soluble, 45 grains
Fennel water, 3.5 ounces
Give a few drops on lump of sugar in the cage once daily.

Now I'm pretty sure it's hard to get chloroform these days. To quote Back to the Future, "I'm sure that in 1985 plutonium is available in every corner drug store, but in 1955 it's a little hard to come by." And that brings us to the starch recipes. Here's what the book has to say about starch:

Most laundry starches now contain some polishing mixture for giving a high luster.
I.--Dissolve in a vessel of sufficient capacity, 42 parts of crystallized magnesium chloride in 30 parts of water. In another vessel stir 12 parts of starch in 20 parts of water to a smooth paste. Mix the two and heat under pressure until the starch is fluidified.
II.--Pour 250 parts, by weight, of water, over 5 parts, by weight, of powdered gun tragacanth until the powder swells uniformly; then add 750 parts, by weight, of boiling water, dissolve 50 parts, by weight, of borax in it, and stir 50 parts, by weight, of stearine and 50 parts, by weight, of talcum into the whole. Of this fluid add 250 parts to 1,000 parts of boiled starch, or else the ironing oil is applied by means of a sponge on the starched wash, which is then ironed.
III.--Starch, 1,044 parts, by weight
Borax, 9 parts, by weight
Common salt, 1 part, by weight
Gum arabic, 8 parts, by weight
Stearine, 20 parts, by weight

Number II gives me a headache just reading it. I'm pretty sure borax is available, at least by mail order, but I have to admit I'm not sure about some of the others. So...I think I'm going to just stick with using plain starch, 2 tablespoons in 1 pint of water, and for a shine I'll rub a bar of soap on the collar when I iron it. Process: soak the collar and cuffs in the starch mixture for a few minutes and remove, using your fingers to work the starch into the fabric and make sure there are no lumps. Allow to dry overnight on a flat surface. Before ironing spray with water, rub a bar of soap on the collar, and iron and polish until almost dry. Place in a collar box or pin the ends together and allow to dry completely in a curved shape.

Steampunk Asylum 2012

My wife and I attended the Steampunk Asylum in Lincoln, UK. It was amazing, and so much fun to see so many people dressed in outstanding outfits. I always hesitate to use the word "costume" since, at least in regards to strictly Victorian clothing, this is what people actually wore, and not a costume at all. I know steampunk can get a little costume-y, but I still like to use the word "outfit" instead.

In any case, the weather was remarkably warm for an English September, and I sweat through everything because of course I insisted on wearing my frock coat and top hat as I climbed up Steep Hill. And believe you me, the name of that street is well earned! There's nothing like a steep cobblestone street to get the costume wilting.

In any case, I was wearing the shirt and trousers I made for this blog. The collar and cuffs didn't get quite as starched as I would have liked, and I might make them over again without the interior, heavier linen interlining. They just felt bulky to me, but at least they still looked good.

Apart from the goggles, I was really more "Victorian" than "Steampunk" which is something I struggle with. I really like the steampunk aesthetic, but I have a hard time finding an outfit that works for me. My wife, on the other hand, chose to take an almost literal interpretation, and went for a Victorian take on 70's London punk. The corset you've seen in a previous post; I also made the bell skirt and the leather choker with steel spikes and pearls.

Steampunk corset

This is a corset I made for my wife for the Steampunk Asylum in Lincoln, UK. It's interlined with linen canvas, lined with white linen, and faced with blue canvas duck. The design is felled by hand on top of the duck. It has 28 flat steel bones, and the rivets are supported by a layer of buckram (in addition to the three sturdy layers of fabric).

How to wear trousers properly

Despite the lack of recent posts, I'm still here! I've been working on other, non-Victorian-men's clothing, and haven't had a chance to do anything new for this blog. In the meantime, here's a good post from Williams Clothiers on How to Wear Trousers Properly and Avoid Gaposis.

Day Trousers: Part 5 (pockets)

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of photos of the pocket-making process. I have to say I was working on this through the heat wave last week, and what with having a fan pointed at me going full blast - and then having to keep moving the thread that was blowing around in the breeze - I didn't stop to take a lot of pictures as I went along.

Let's start  first with a photo from last the last post. You'll see the two unfinished flaps of wool poking out - those are the pocket facings. They're here so that from the outside you don't see any of the pocketing fabric, which in this case I'm making out of the same cotton that I used to interline the trousers.

Here is the pocket, all finished. I know, I know, I didn't get any in-progress shots. Basically I took a large square of fabric, folded it in half, and then placed it on top of the trousers where I wanted the pocket to be. I then trimmed off the bit hanging over the waistband, and the bit hanging over the side seam. I stitched the side edge of the pocket to the side stay, then felled the pocket facings onto the pocket, from the inside. That was a little tricky for the top part, as you may be able to tell from the photo below. It wasn't perfect, but you'll never see. I felled the tops to the top of the waist stay, and tacked the corners so they don't pull free. Finally I trimmed the bottom of the pocket into a curve, backstitched along the seam, and hand-serged the raw edges. 

Here's a shot from the outside. Notice the pick stitching along the front of the pocket opening. This secures the pocket facing from flapping backwards and pulling out of the pocket.

A closeup of one of the bar tacks. These are placed at the top and bottom of each pocket opening, and are used to keep the seams from being pulled open as your hands go in and out of the pocket.

All right - almost finished with the trousers! Now I just need to affix buttons for the braces, and line them, and they're done!

Day Trousers: Part 4 (fly and stays)

I know, I promised pockets next. I didn't realise there was so much more to do before getting to the pockets, so here's one more post before I get to them.

I took some photos outside instead of inside at my dark work table. Wow. The photos came out so much better. It's just so hot outside right now, so I may not take all my photos outside. Also, it's hard to stop work to take a photo and then come back inside to keep working.

Here is the button catch, with the buttonholes marked and basted, ready to cut.

The finished buttonholes (with bright colours!). This button catch is lined with linen, and has a layer of wool on each side to finish it. Some of the buttonholes are better than others.... I've also made the finished side of the buttonholes face to the outside, even though they'll usually (and hopefully always) be covered by the facing flap of the button catch, but just in case they show they'll look neat and tidy from the front.

Here's the finished and lined button fly. Note the difference between "button catch" and "button fly". I had trouble keeping the two apart, which led to a lot of reading and re-reading to make sure I was doing what was needed to the right side. I also referred to David Page Coffin's Trousers book to wrap my brain around button flies (flys?). Anyway, this is stayed with a triple layer of folded canvas to provide support for the buttons.

Here's a shot of some of the additional stay supports in the trousers. Across the top are the waist stays, which are actually several shorter lengths of canvas, overlapped at the side seams and at the split points at the back of the waistband. Down the side seam is another stay, which goes to just below the pocket opening, and keeps the pocket opening flat, and also gives the pocket bag itself something sturdy to fell onto (in the next post). Finally you can see the two round button stays for the suspenders/braces. In the rear there are triangular button stays which go up into the back split points.

The top of the trousers are cross stitched onto the waist stays. This seam will be covered eventually by the interior lining. Not shown, I pick stitched all around the waist stay to the front, about an inch from the top, to give the waist the support it derives from the stays.

Day Trousers: Part 3 (fly facings)

I have discovered that, despite what the home tailor does, there are two very different jobs in making men's clothing: the cutter and the tailor. The cutter does all the measuring, drafting, and cutting of the material, and the tailor does all the putting together.

The reason I've made this distinction is because in the book The Victorian Tailor, Jason Maclochlainn does his best to combine the two roles and describe them both, but honestly they are two huge (and vastly different) jobs, so some of both gets lost in the describing.

Don't get me wrong, he does a great job, but I think if I didn't have any sewing experience, or any other resources, I'd have a pretty hard time following along. I think another part of the problem is that the cutter is expected to just know how to draft and cut all the various things that go along with the base trouser pattern, such as the fly facings and linings, pocket facings, and so on. None of these are detailed in the book. I tried to look up how to put together the fly in W. D. F. Vincent's The Cutter's Practical Guide to the Cutting and Making all kinds of [sic] Trousers, Breeches & Knickers (Eighth Ed., 1898). No info at all on the cutting or making of the fly (or the pockets, which I'll post about next), other than to mention that the cutter must cut out all the facings and linings, and pass them along to the tailor. So that didn't help at all.

I just bought David Page Coffin's Making Trousers, but for the pair of trousers I'm making now, I relied on this picture from The Victorian Tailor:

On it you can see the shape of the button catch and the pocket facings (under the hip stay). It looks almost as though the pocket facing has been clipped and turned, but the written directions have them remain right up to the seam, so I'm going to do that as well.

So let me post (finally) some pictures of what I've been up to.

Here is the fly stay. The X stitching is like cross stitching, except instead of stitching off to the side, I've just gone across the stay and made the next stitch there. Holds it in place, and doesn't show from the other side.

You can't see it yet, but I've sewn the fly lining onto the fly. This is mostly just to brag about my stitch count. :)

Now I've turned the lining over to cover the fly stay, and basted it in place. Eventually it'll get the button fly put over it.

Now to the other side, the button catch. I think I got the shape about right, based on the picture in the book. It goes all the way up to the top of the waistband, and is lined with a canvas stay.

Here's what it looks like from the front. I thought I'd figured out how to line up the plaid, but I guess not. Oh well, it won't show much once the fly is buttoned.

And now the two legs of the trousers are basted together, still inside out. At this point I can work on the pockets, which will be for the next post.