Ye Pirate Brethren

The only thing left on my shirt is the cuffs.

What is the best way to close them?
Ties? If so, how?
Button? (Like a modern dress shirt?

Based on practical experience, what do ya'll like?

(Part of me says, overlap them, sew them closed, maybe sew on a button and be done with it. All I need is enough room to slip my hand in and out, like in my dress shirts, which are never unbuttoned anymore.)

I make mine with real buttons and buttonholes... But then I sew a lot and don't mind the extra work this gives to me.

I personally favour small fabric buttons for shirt, although I do know many who prefer dorset buttons for this...

to make the all fabric buttons see the middle portion of the page on the below link...

http://www.renaissancetailor.com/demos_buttons.htm

I use the same style of button to close the neck as I do on the cuffs, although many pirate re-enactors like the rough and unfinished look of an open neckline.

Cheers

On the neck of this shirt . . . I'm using ties (if I have time to head back down to 96 Storehouse to get some).
Though, this first one is more rough than later ones will be. It is a "quick and dirty" one to see if a concept would work and if the measurements would fit or need alteration, while I have just under 4 yards of fabric left for another 2 shirts. The inner seams are simply left raw. I am expecting it to start to fall apart eventually . . .
The other will be finished better, as a matter of course.

(The neck tie will be based on the shirts in the 1995 version of Rob Roy, which has pretty accurate costumes, if not an historically accurate plot.)

Timely post, I'm making a new shirt tommorow from the gentlemans of fortune site. I was woundering what button to use.

Mark

Here's what Kathleen Deagan has to say about it.

"Although small, linked pairs of buttons were used to fasten sleeves in the England colonies during the seventeenth century (Noel-Hume 1961), none have been reported from Spanish contexts prior to the eighteenth century. They are present on Spanish sites throughout the century and are usually both smaller and more ornate than associated buttons.

"Square sleeve links set with paste jewels are encountered most frequently during the first half of the century."

I checked Noel-Hume's book, but he glosses over the subject really, and points to his article on sleeve buttons from 1961 if memory serves.

This site has a good pic of various buttons.
http://www.virginiadigs.net/broaddus_fl ... nce_6.html

So, I would say based on this, if you were doing a Spanish impression you'd be more accurate with a tied shirt. If you were English, you'd be more likely to have buttons.

The Spanish were just weird . . .

They marched to a beat shared by NO ONE!

Oh, and Thanks for the article links.

by ties, do you mean the kind that make the shirt kind of puffy? I was under the impression that they were fairly common during the last quarter of the 17th century among French. Am I way of on this?

I interpreted "ties" as meaning the wrist/neck closures... I hadn't even considered the ties they used to help billow the sleeves. Wasn't the billowing sleeves just done with ribbons? Or were the ribbon/ties to do that integrated to the garment?

I interpreted "ties" as meaning the wrist/neck closures... I hadn't even considered the ties they used to help billow the sleeves. Wasn't the billowing sleeves just done with ribbons? Or were the ribbon/ties to do that integrated to the garment?[/quote]

No idea, but would sure like to know...

Big sleeve gathered into small fastened cuff (I prefer link buttons with mine) will give you a 'puffy' sleeve.

Aye sir...like the one Lady Brower made for me.... it has two buttons per cuff, very comfy IMO

Hello,

(I took you to excuse me for my bad English because I don't speak the Shakespeare language fluently)

I do not know if it is truly historic, but for my buttons I have are carved from deer antler and I'm like cufflinks.







For more details on this shirt:
in French > http://lesfreresdelacote.aceboard.fr/332521-2007-3665-0-Tuto-chemise-militaire-XVIIIe.htm