18th Century Sleeve Links (Video)

 A short little video about sleeve links.

Here's a link to my sleeve buttons pinterest board.

There's a huge number of sleeve buttons on finds.org.uk, and a lot on the Museum of London website too. On scribd.com there are two documents with pictures of more 18th century sleeve links, and 18th century notebook also has a page of them.

Places that sell reproduction sleeve buttons include Sign of the Gray Horse, Najecki Reproductions, Goosebay Workshops, and Wm. Booth Draper. At The Easter Door has some too, but I can't see any indication on the website of how to actually buy them.

Edit: I've more recently learned that you can find vintage cufflinks that work for 18th century too!
The kind with the stiff attached posts aren't any use, but the "chain link" kinds have either a little chain or a bar with two loops, so they work just like the 18th century ones. 

Here are the two pairs I've got so far. The black ones were $15 on etsy and the gold ones were $3 at a thrift store. The gold ones aren't great for 18th century but the black ones are octagons, which is good. 

A quick google images search for "chain link cufflinks" shows quite a lot of oval and octagon ones that look plenty appropriate for 18th century! The important features are that they're linked at each end, and that the little decorative bits are the same on either end instead of having one fancy thingy and one plain bar.

I'll be keeping an eye open for them from now on at thrift stores and estate sales! I've heard that vintage cufflinks are one of those things that you can get for really good prices because not many people use them anymore.

Here are all the images used in the video:

A Boy Drawing by Nicolas Bernard Lépicié.

Fleetwood Hesketh by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1769.

Portrait of Jacques Dumont Le Romain Playing the Guitar by Maurice-Quentin de la Tour.

Industry and Idleness (panel 7) by William Hogarth, 1747.

Portrait of Deborah Glen, c. 1730's.

Portrait of Elizabeth "Betje" Van Dyck Vosburg, c. 1725.

Portrait of Louis-Francois Roubiliac by Adrien Carpentiers, 1762

An Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1768 (detail).

The rest of these are all archaeological finds from Portable Antiquities Scheme, so I'll just leave links to the individual object pages, which have a bunch more information.

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Sage Green Linen Shirt

I've made another everyday shirt! 

There's nothing much to say about the construction, it's made in mostly the same way as the shirt in this post. All the long seams are by machine, and there's hand finishing at the cuff, collar, and front slit.

I did the buttonholes by hand, and made Dorset wheel buttons in light green DMC cotton pearl. I've decided I don't really like having the sewn on buttons on these narrow cuffs, they don't sit as nicely as the 18th century ones that close with sleeve links.

The fabric is Summer Breeze linen in "Sage" from Pure Linen Envy and it's lovely! It's nice and soft and such a good weight for shirts. I got some more of the same weight in white, because I really need to make more historical shirts too.

I like this shirt very much! Sage green is one of my favourite colours, and it goes so well with my brown waistcoat and pants.

This waistcoat really doesn't fit well anymore, alas.

I also got a couple metres of the same weight linen in dark red, light grey, and another shade of green, and I look forward to making shirts out of them too!