Duster | Jerkin | Grey Shirt | Trousers | Boots

How to make Strider's Grey Shirt

V 1.0 - August 2003

Most of the steps and pattern pieces are described in the basic description. Right now this section is just for decorating the sleeves.How to do the Smocking

How to Fake the Smocking

How to replace the smocking with sheering (barely can tell the difference and well save you time.

1) just lines of gathers. Maybe 5, maybe 7. Another name for it sheering (sp?).
- a) Cut your sleeve, very wide at the top
- b) Mark you lines. I'd say 1/2 but... they're metric... so what 2cm??? My "eye" doesn't think metric and one looks too narrow... but that may just
  be me.
- c) Just set your sewing machine to the wide gather stitch. Make sure to leave your self long tails of thread on both ends. Run the stitch. Try to keep
  the fabric from gathering too much before you get all the lines sew. (Some won't hurt... is just hard to sew the next line straight.)
- d) Pull the gathers in carefully to the amount you want for your sleeve cap e) After everything is adjusted, change your sewing machine to regular stitch... and stitch across to stabilize the gathers into place.
- f) sew in.
2) Note the HUGE tear and patch in the back of the shirt. At first a wondered gusset that got torn out??? Nah. The shape of the tear is wrong.
- Personal opinion, the sleeve cap may have not been wide enough for the sheering, so his shirt suffered from the same thing that Legolas's jerkin does -- arms don't go up w/ a bit of strain to the fabric. Guess is... that got cured the hard way... Riiiiiiippppppp! And then wardrobe put in the patch... or he did. <G>.

How to do the smocking on Aragorn's Sleeve

== by Phyllis

The top of Aragorn’s shirt sleeve has a smocked insert. The smocking was completed first, attached to the rest of the sleeve, and the sleeve was sewn to the shirt.

There are 8 rows of smocking. The original was most likely hand pleated, but a smocking pleater can be used as well. If you don’t have a smocking pleater, you can pleat by hand using iron-on dots. Instructions for hand pleating will follow as soon as a resource can be located for iron-on transfer dots. Also on the way are thread colors, fabric notes, a smocking chart and an actual smocked sample.

Only 3 stitches are used:

1. Honeycomb stitch

2. Bullions (to make the honeycomb pattern)

3. Baby Wave (stitched twice to create a diamond pattern)

Pleat 10 rows. Top and bottom rows are holding rows and are not smocked.

Row 2

Stitch a single 8 wrap Bullion to mark where the sleeve meets the shoulder. Bullions are for advanced stitchers; you can substitute a simple Cable stitch, which is more common in a Honeycomb. Here is an instruction for Bullion:

http://home.iprimus.com.au/ijerry/sharonb/stitchdict/stitch/Bullion.html

for a Cable stitch see the link found in Rows 3-6 below.

Row 3-6:

Are stitched in a Honeycomb stitch that uses 3 stacked Bullions to make the honeycomb. Here is the honeycomb stitch – shown worked with a Cable:

http://www.princetonpleaters.org/web/Stitches/Smocking/honeycomb.asp

Row 7

Is done in a Baby Wave stitch going up. Here is a baby wave stitch:

http://www.princetonpleaters.org/web/Stitches/Smocking/baby_wave.asp

Row 8

Is done in a reverse Baby Wave going down; this creates the diamond pattern.

That completes the insert! Pin the insert to your ironing board and set the pleats with a blast of steam. Let it fry completely and construct the shirt. The original has been washed many, many times, and the stitches have been abraded to age them and to make the shirt look old and worn.

This page was last updated 04/22/08