Bodiced Petticoat Complete

Here is my finished Regency Bodiced Petticoat:
It's not hemmed yet: I'll do that at the same time I hem my gown. Check out the great Regency silhouette from the side! I was a bit concerned about how the stays were pushing up my cleavage, but with the petticoat over it, I can really start to see how this is going to look with the dress. Very period!
Compare my silhouette to this print by James Gillray entitled "Stays" (it's one from his series titled "The Progress of the Toilette). Not bad, eh?I went ahead and made up a muslin toile of my ball gown. The back fits beautifully:
I'm not so sure about the front. It looks a bit big. Too poofy and too long on bottom. Any opinions? I may cut out one cup size smaller and see if that improves the fit...but one cup smaller will also shorten the back which I think is perfect. It's sort of hard to tell at this point how the fit is...according to the pattern for my size, I'll add a drawstring waistband to the dress so that I can make sure the bottom edge of the Empire waist fits like a glove. Hmm...
I want to make sure I get my toile right before I touch my fashion fabric. There's no more where it came from (handwoven in India), and I've been safeguarding this one-of-a-kind beauty. Here it is draped over Mini so you can get an idea of what the gown will look like. The gold border is only going to be used around the hem, and possibly for the waistband and sleeve bands.

Regency Bodiced Petticoat

Charging ahead towards the Jane Austin Ball, I'm now assembling my bodiced petticoat. This involved slight altering the Sense and Sensibility regency day dress pattern following these instructions (I can't rave enough about these patterns so far...her online instructions and support are excellent). The key here was that I really needed a dress form before I'd be able to fit the petticoat on myself. And can I say how much I LOVE my dress form.Here's Mini from the front, sporting the finished muslin mock-up. The fit might look a bit funny, but I tried it on myself as well. The dress form doesn't have cleavage where mine will be (Mini can only squish in, not up), and there will be a drawstring that will make the top edge fit.
The back shot shows off the great fit I managed to get very nicely. I'm going to have the petticoat lace in the back instead of buttoning (I'm really not good at button holes...plus, there's no way I could button up my back, while I might be able to lace myself up).

I am not adding any boning to the petticoat because I am not using it as a substitute for the period stays (some reenactors choose to only wear the bodiced petticoat under their Regency dresses). I've cut out the very fine batiste I ordered way back while we were still living in Poland, and assembled the bodice and the lining. Next up: I'll add the drawstring casing and sew the two layers together before adding the petticoat skirt.

Gravity Suspended

I have completed my regency chemise and corset. I think the chemise is one of the finest items I've made the date. By this, I don't mean my favorite, I just mean that it is high quality fabric that was painstakingly put together until I don't think there's a thing I would have done differently. The fit is perfect, and the drawstring neckline is really going to come in handy with some of my outfits.Next up: the completed Regency short stays (ie corset). As usual, I had fitting issues in the bust area. I even used the gusset inserts for my bra size, the but the cups were left bulging out from the corset. I couldn't even bring myself to take a picture of it. They pointed straight out like a Madonna corset gone all wrong. I solved the problem by running a drawstring along the neckline of corset, and drawing the excess fabric up (I'm not saying the cups were too big...in fact they were too small...I'm saying the cleavage was going everywhere except where they were supposed to). So the fit isn't perfect...the gussets shouldn't be gathered up like that, but it works. I'm now have bodice-busting Regency cleavage. Oh my.
The back of the corset really has an amazing fit - like a glove! If I can only covert the fit of the back of this corset to the longer Mantua Maker Regency stays, fix the shoulder straps (again...worked nicely on this pattern, but not at all on the long corset), and then add a neckline drawstring, perhaps I can finally fix my long Regency Stays.

Regency Chemise

We're finally pretty much moved into our new place, and I caught the sewing bug this weekend. I had the Simplicity Regency Underthings pattern, courtesy of JoAnne's .99 cent pattern sale, and I also had some batiste fabric I picked up at the Fort Frederick Sutler's event. So...The pattern went together surprisingly quickly. Frankly, I thought I'd just get it cut out, but instead I'm almost finished. Check out how nicely the sleeve gussets went in:I've done a project with sleeve gussets before (check out my Tudor Chemise) but it was a bit of a disaster. I couldn't figure out how to make all the flat-felled seams work out around the diamond the gusset forms. Luckily, with a bit of patience and meticulous ironing, this one turned out great! See how neat and tidy my seams are?
The only thing that kept me from finishing is that I don't have any single fold bias tape. I even hemmed the sleeves and bottom already. I thought for sure I'd have some bias tape lying around in my notions box, but no such luck. As soon as I get the tape all that's left to do is sew it around the neckline and then thread a cord through the casing it will form. Then I can lace up the neckline to the exactly the right spot, and voila! One Regency chemise (which will also double quite nicely for my 18th century outfits...no more cheating by wearing tanks under my corset).

I now am highly motivated to get my Regency gowns and undies finished, because I have an event to go to! Gatsby's Tavern is hosting a Jane Austen Ball in August, and I fully intend to be there sporting a fabulous Regency ball gown.

Regency Underthings

It's been too long since I've had anything to blog about. It's certainly not because I haven't had an interest in sewing. Since my last update, my husband and I have relocated twice (both moves were international moves. My sewing machine and projects can't exactly come on the plane with me when I'm limited to 50 lbs of luggage for the 3 months it takes for our stuff to catch up with us, so I have been missing my favorite hobby. It's given me lots of time to plan and think ahead.

I'm now back in the US...waiting still on my sewing supplies to arrive. I'll then have to figure out how I'm going to set up my sewing area and get everything organized before I can start sewing. I'm thrilled, though, that for the first time in about three years I can just pop out to my local sewing store if I run out of something, instead of having to wait three weeks while I order it online. My favorite fabric store is even nearby. Yay!!

So here are my current costuming priorities:

#1. Fix my regency corset. It's still not quite right. Thank you to Jessamyn of the Regency Costume Companion for her helpful suggestions on how I might correct the fit. I was thrilled to see that she had visited my site - I have consulted her website many times while researching the Regency Era. She suggests that I turn the corset straps to an angle so they will not cut into my shoulders, and will stay put a bit better. I'll give that a try and see what happens.

#2. Given how rigid the long regency corset is, I'm going to try a short version of Regency Stays as a back up. Simplicity had it's annual .99 cent sale, and I snagged their Regency undergarments pattern.Since the pattern comes with a chemise, I'll go ahead and make it up, along with the bodiced petticoat, and then move on to the two dresses I would like to make. I have a friend who really wants a regency outfit for Jane Austin outings, so this will all be good practice for her gowns.

Finished Corset

The corset is all finished! When we left off, I was sewing in boning channels. Here's a picture of me inserting the boning:
And next I pinned on the binding to finish the corset's edges:

Next came marking the eyelet holes with washable ink:Then I used an awl to make eyelet holes:And then I sewed eyelets by hand for hours and hours. About six hours if I add up the movies I was watching in the background (Casino Royal, Harry Potter, and Memoirs of a Geisha). Thank goodness for the three day weekend!So here's the final product. The neckline is definitely doing what it's supposed to do:The fit is much better, though it's still not perfect. I can't figure out exactly what's wrong, but the bust line isn't fitting quite right, and the shoulder straps are too big or set too far out (you can see that they're wanting to inch to the left off my shoulders in the picture below). I'm not quite sure how to fix that.
Overall a pretty good fit. I hope it looks accurate underneath a regency gown. I'm concerned about the corset line on the bust showing through the gown, and what those straps are going to do...

Maybe the bodiced petticoat will resolve these issues. The only way to find out is to make up the petticoat!

Saved by Fabric Surplus!

My regency corset project continues thanks to an extra yard of cotton coutil in my fabric bin. I honestly have no idea where it came from. It must have been extra from another corset kit.

So, I've started the Corset over again, this time one size up. I think I've finally gotten the hang of putting in the gussets. I guess the first one was kind of like the rough draft (I know, I know, that's what the mock-up is supposed to be...but this project took two rough drafts).
I toyed with adding an additional hip or front stomach gusset, but in the end I felt that it wouldn't be needed. If the gussets made the corset too big at the hips it would be ruined. I can always go back and add a gusset later if I still need one (though it would really be a nuisance!).
The picture above shows the corset lining (in the front) and the outer corset (in the back) before I sewed them together. All of the bust and hip gussets seem to be lining up nicely. The gussets were an issue with the first version and I wound up having to reinsert most of the gussets. Here's the assembled lining and shell pinned together. Now I'm reinforcing the corset's seams using a technique known as 'stitching the ditch.' You sew the lining and the shell together by carefully stitching though all the layers along the seams. Here's an illustration:
Up next is adding the boning channels. Then come the dreaded hand-bound eyelets.

Alterations and Frustrations

The Regency Corset has been advancing at a fast pace. I tried on the lining one last time and decided that the bust gussets needed to be lengthened because the bottoms of the gussets did not reach the bottom of my bust. I ripped out the old gusset panels, drafted a new longer version of the gussets, cut deeper into the corset, and sewed in the new panels. The old gusset is on the right compared with the new longer gusset shown below. I'm pretty proud of this alteration, and the lining fits much better now:So the next step was to repeat the process with the satin coutil, sew the lining and satin coutil together, sew in boning channels, insert the boning, bind the raw edges of the corset, and finally comes the painstaking hand sewing of the lacing eyelets. It took me about three days to accomplish these steps (sorry...I didn't take pictures of this phase...I was excited to finish).

As soon as the last eyelet was finished, I begged Dave to lace me into the corset. The picture is horribly unflattering, but here was the final result (Check out Captain Picard in the background):
It may not be as visible from the front, but from the back it's clear that after all my careful fitting, the darned thing is one size too small. Regency corsets are designed to have a wider gap in the back...but my gap was a few inches beyond the intended gap. You can also tell if you look at the shoulder straps which are cutting into my shoulders because they're too far forward. On a more positive note, at least you can tell that the corset is doing what it was intended to do.
Although my bust line was rather...frightening.
Resewing the seams to try and size the corset up isn't a great option. I had a very small seam allowance to begin with, and the corset really needs to go up an entire size. I have enough satin coutil to sew a second corset, but I'll need more cotton coutil. I'll reuse the busk and boning. I plan to raid my fabric supply and make sure I don't have enough coutil from an old project laying around, and if not I'll have to reorder.

Regency Corset

Wohoo! I'm actually sewing again. I'm making up my Regency Corset (the pattern to the right). I did a careful fitting with the Swedish Interfacing, but I must admit I'm concerned about the fit. Corsets are rather difficult to fit since you have to squeeze the back together very tightly to see how well it's going to fit. My Swedish interfacing would rip if I squeezed it like that...so I measured and measured again. All that's left is to cross your fingers. Here's the made up lining in cotton coutil:
Many people make bodiced petticoats to get the regency look, but that isn't an option with my figure. Instead, I need to make the full Regency corset, complete with gussets, boning, and a busk up the middle. I'm using the Mantua Maker pattern which according to everything I've read on line is supposed to be the best. I'm using cotton coutil for the lining and the outer layer is satin coutil. The bones are all steel (not period, but I'm not interested in using cord or reed, and plastic boning won't hold it's form so it seems like the best alternative).
Here is another photo of the lining to give you an idea of the corset's shape. Katherine, another historical seamstress, has also sewn a corset from this same pattern, so you can see her version here for an idea of the finished product.