Back to the 18th century

 It is time for me to return to the 18th century. I haven't done anything since the Lady Poe gown, and already when doing that I realised that I needed a shift and a new pair of stays. Now my pair of stays works for the mid 18th century, but I have always loved the later 18th century silhouette, and the only stays I had for that was my Desert Rose stays. And they were done when I was at my tiniest, so I was able to wear them twice before I started gaining back my weight again.

This is my start. The mound of fabric in the lower right is a new chemise. I have sewn it together and is working on felling the seams before hemming  everything. This is a project that I will bring with me to our cosplay meets on Tuesdays since it's a simple thing to just sit and handsew and talk.

Then it's on to the stays. Together with my weight gain I have also had a lot of issues with my shoulders the last few year, and now it is impossible for me to lace up a corset or stays in the back. I need a pair of frontlacing stays. I decided to buy the Redthreaded 1780s front lacing stays instead of fiddling with drafting my own pattern.

For the stays I'm doing more of a theatrical than historical constructions. I'm using coutil as the strength layer. My original plan was to use linen or cotton canvas, but I couldn't find any in my stash. Since I had to order fabric and the place that I ordered from had a sale on coutil if you bought more than 3 meters I decided to use coutil, and buy enough of it so I can make the 1910s corset that I will need to make later in the year. Here is a big difference from the last time I made corsets or stays, brexit has made it hard to order from my favorite supply site, so I now have to go back to Swedish sites. The good thing is that there are now several options selling boning and corset fabrics in Sweden as well, which really wasn't the case when I started making corsets.

For the inner layer I'm using a sand/grey cotton twill from the stash, and since I want my stays to look good I found that floral cotton in the stash as well. It's not 18th century, but I go for cute rather than accurate with the stays.