Handsewn Italian Camicia

NOTE: This project has been abandoned. I was very close to finish it, it was only missing the neckline and wrists, but the pleating and gathering proved to be too much for me. I'm not sure if it was because I did the step in wrong order and should have done the gathering before, or something different. But I will pull the pieces apart and use them in other projects as I need them.

In times where materials were expensive, and there was no easy means to wash and dry clothes fast and efficiently, keeping your clothing clean was imperative. To protect the expensive clothes from body oils and sweat, women wore a simple linen shirt as a first layer that is known by many names: Shift, chemise, camicia, etc...

A camicia could have many variations: Neckline square or round, high or low, gathered or with bias tape, wrists gathered or cuffed. Some were adorned with blackwork, redwork, smoking of other kinds of embellishments. But in the end all met the same need: Protect your expensive clothes from your own body.

Coming back after my long hiatus, I needed new camicias for my venetian garb. Until now I've always done them by machine and while fast there were steps that I never was happy with: The underarm gussets and the gathering on the hems. I got functional but extremely messy results and I have been never happy with them so I decided to take a leap of faith and make one by hand, see how it resulted.

This is a very simple camicia, with no embellishments at all and simple gathering on the neckline and hems. Is meant to be used with any kind of dress, formal or not so I needed it to be as versatile as possible.

The fabric I chose for it is IL020 PERFECTLY PALE Softened from www.fabrics-store.com It is a very soft, light weight linen that does not add bulk. Because it is 58 inches wide, I fold it in half (29 inches wide) and cut as follows:

1 yard for front and back
1 yard for sleeves
1 yard for sides and gussets, with a little more of a quarter of width leftover

If I would to extend the fabric fully, the cuts would be like this

The gussets are 10 by 10 inches and the leftover fabric I plan to use for linen bias tape that is always needed. Some patterns recommend to use a quarter width for each sleeve and that means the pattern would take 2 yards and 10 inches instead of the 3 yards I'm using, but for me 1/4 width per sleeve is too narrow and gives me very tight sleeves.

For the construction, I started sewing the gussets to the sleeve. Take a corner of the gusset and sew a side to the long side of the sleeve. Then take the DIAGONAL corner of the gusset and sew it to the other long side of the sleeve. When you reach the point just keep going and sew the sleeve closed. The gusset is going to cover the armpit and the finished sleeve should look like this

Side view of a finished sleeve

Top view of a finished sleeve

As you can see, the wrist borders do not fully align. I'm not worried about this because these sleeves are slightly too long for me so I'll have to trim them anyway. I will do this once I have both sleeves finished so I can be sure they are are the same lenght.

I'm using backstitch for all structural seams with a seam allowance of half an inch, and I close the allowances folding them twice to the outside and tacking them with whip stitch. An alternative is using running stitch, but I prefer to err on the safe side.

Tip: Use your selvdeges! They are half an inch wide so if you make your seam just under them you know exacly how wide your seam allowance is

While you don't NEED to finish all the seams on the sleeves now, I prefer to do it because later it will be more difficult to do with all the other seams already done. so I finished the seams of both sleeves before going to the next past: attaching the sleeves to the sides.

On each side piece, mark the half point of a short side and cut a slit 10 inches deep. This is where the gusset of the sleeve is attached.

(Note of the Author: Attaching the gussets to the side is the only step I really hate on this project. It is fiddly and I really have not found a good way to do it. When doing these seams by machine I will always end with the bottom of the sleeve bunched against the gusset.)

To attach the gusset to the side, mark a point half an inch below the bottom of the slit and mark a point half an inch from each side of the free corner of the gusset. Line both marks and pin it.

Sew one side of the gusset from the bottom of the slit to the seam between the gusset and the sleeve. You should have approximately 1 inch of the slit left (half inch for each seam allowance of the gusset)

Go back to the mark and sew the other side in the same way.

In this picture I have already sewn one of the sides and have clips at the beginning of each seam to keep the fabric in place. I fiddled so much with the fabric trying to get it right that the bottom of the slit opened from the pulling so now I'll have some bunching.

Right side of the gusset inserted on the slit

Back side of the gusset inserted on the slit

It ended being more than a bit and not only looked ugly, also on the back there was not enough seam allowance to finish the seam, so I took out my seam reaper and I ripped all the bunched seam. Then I folded the side piece along the slip and just cut along the fold. Continued the seam on the gussets to its sides and then just sew the sides together. This time the results were much cleaner and all the seams could be finished neatly.

The next step was the final assembly of the pieces, attaching the sides to the front and back and finishing all the seams, like the picture on the left. I've also folded the bottom hem to even out the length, but I will be leaving that seam for the last place because the neckline has started to unravel, so I need to finish it sooner than later.

There are multiple ways to create a neckline for this camicia. It needs to be pleated or smocked to shrink it to the desired width, but you can do a ruffle or close it with bias tape. You could also sew some lace to the border or to embroider it for a fancier look. Because this one is a simple practice and learning piece, I decided to go for a simple pleating secured by a flat band of bias tape.

I started by evening out the front and back of the neckline to trim the unraveling. Then I measured half an inch into the fabric and marked every half inch parallel to the border. This would ensure that I would have space to pleat all the fabric without having to worry about unraveling, and also have space for the closing band. Then I added another set of marks, one inch into the fabric, spaced half an inch but offset a quarter of inch form the first set.

I basted both set of marks using running stitch in separate sections: Front, back and each of the sleeves, making sure I left long tails at both ends so the basting did not became undone as I worked. I did it this way because the gathering is not even around the neckline and by working on sections it would allow me to tense each part as needed.

Because the front of the neckline sits lower than the back, the gathering on the sleeves needs to be denser in the back (shoulder to back) than the front. Also, the back of the neckline has a smaller measurement than the front, so the gathering needs to be denser. All this will help to keep front and back in place and avoid the neckline from sliding around.

While on my brain, and by concept it was a good idea, in reality it was a complete disaster. All the tails ended tangling together, and once after I started to pull and close the gathers, they would not stay long in enough to fix them in place. I ended undoing all the gather and starting again.

This time I used black thread for the basting, to make sure I could see it. Doubled it to make sure it would not break and I secured one end of the basting with a couple of extra stitches to make sure it would not slide off.

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