Sunday, November 16, 2008

18th Century Stays Progress

I am continuing to work on the pair of stays from my September workshop. I was really hoping to get them done in time to take them with me to my Williamsburg dress workshop this weekend, but unfortunately the reed I ordered was all wrong and WAY too flimsy. I chatted with other workshop participants and know what to order now, but I was incredibly frustrated.
Here you can see I finished the eyelets. I am doing period correct spiral lacing instead of the traditional criss-cross that I have done in the past. It apparently really affects the fit of the garment, so I decided to stick with the period correct method.I did not hand sew all the channels on the corset (this would have been a year long project otherwise). A bit of work on the machine, but the pieces were all assembled with hand stitching.Here's the corset fully assembled after I sewed in all the boning channels. I had Dave lace me into it for one final test fit, and to mark where a few of the tab slits should go. And here's what it looks like once all the excess fabric has been trimmed away. Not bad, eh? All it needs in bones inserted, leather binding, and then I will line it.Here's what the inside looked like with all the excess seam allowance (this is in case you need to make adjustments to the fit..pretty smart method if you ask me).And here's the inside with the seam allowances trimmed to their final width.

1 comment:

Miss Ladybird said...

very nice, i've just finished a pair of "effigy" bodies with 90 boning chanels, 90!!! so i know what a labour of love this is ;)