HSM22: Challenge 11 - fitting. The 1780s stays

 It took a lot longer than planned, and in the end I hurried them, but I did finish the 1780s stays.

One thing that stalled me was when I couldn't find eyelets with washers in the right side, so I had to handsew the lacing holes instead. Now here I should say that I deviated fromt he instructions and instead followed the instructions from Scroop Patterns Augusta stays, which have instructions for making historically accurate stays. It gave me the confidence to make the lacing holes and that they would be strong enough to hold for the lacing. The stays were then boned with synthetic whalebone, I was lucky to have a roll of it at home and it was just enough to get the stays and the stomacher boned.

I wore the stays at party on Saturday, where I managed to get from the party without a single photo of me in costume. While wearing them it was obvious that they were too long for me, they kept poking me in my armpit. 

It is possible to see the foldlines. Before wearing them again I need to cut the stays down to the foldline and rebind them. One good thing with the plastic boning is at least that it's easy to shorten them.

Here you can see that one of the bones even poked through the fabric.

Overall I am happy with the pattern, even if I need to adjust them. There were some instructions that were really helpful, like how to bind the tabs by machine, while others were a bit unclear. I did also use the Augusta stays instructions when I felt that I didn't quite understand or had the ability to use the pattern. I'm hoping that with some tweaking at the armpit they will become a pair of comfortable stays.

What the item is: A pair of 1780s stays
How it fits the challenge: Stays need to fit well, and they are necessary for the clothes on the outside to fit as well. This pair of stays show that a small miss in fit can be really bad. I tried them a lot when making them, but when I finally wore them for real they were too long and poked me in the armpit, so in the end I didn't wear them for the whole party I had made them for. So fit is important, and this is a reminder to not rush in the end, or think that "it won't be too bad, I will be able to wear them and then go back and fix it". 
Material: 1 m cotton twill, 1 m coutil, 1 m floral patterned cotton
Pattern: Redthreadeds front lacing 1780s stays
Year: 1780s
Notions: plastic boning, cotton bias tape for binding, sewing thread
How historically accurate is it? 50% 
Hours to complete: 1,5 months
First worn: at a party on March 19
Total cost: around $120

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.

HSM 15 Challenge 1: Foundation

Finally, finally, finally my new pair of stays are done. When I last posted about them I had gotten quite a nice shape, and I was just going to add a lining and binding and they would be done. Well, I cut out the lining, realized that I loved the fabric and it would be sad to just hide it on the inside and decided that I wanted to add that fabric as an outer layer. Well then the problems started. Since I had fitted the stays directly on myself I couldn't get the lining layer to exactly fit, despite following all my notes on the changes. If I wanted to use the lining fabric as an outer layer it wouldn't look good, so back to the original plan. Then it was the binding, and I simply hate binding, and by now the frustration of the whole construction was started to get to me, so I had them beside my sofa for more than a week without even starting to work on the binding.

This weekend I decided to do it though. It's a good thing that it's winter so there was a lot of sports to watch, and then I topped it off with watching the full version of Lawrence of Arabia. So now with bleeding fingers, I really need to get a thimble, I'm finally done. In honour of all the work that was done to Lawrence of Arabia I'm going to rename these stays the Desert Rose pair of stays.

Now as for the HSM challenge. I just don't see this as a foundation garment because it's a pair of stays. My original plan for the challenge was to draft a working 18th century bodice block, but since I'm not happy about any of my stays I felt that I couldn't do a bodice block without taking my measurements on a pair of well-fitting stays. Now I have a pair of stays, and I have a set of measurements so that I can start with the bodice block, which of course will be the the foundation for my 18th century wardrobe.

As for historical accuracy, well there isn't much of it actually. I've used period materials, except for the lining, but they are sewn on the machine, except for the binding, and I used the metal eyelets, since I don't feel like sewing eyelets by hand when the rest of the garment is so obviously made by machine.

Lousy pictures, it's dark outside, the lights of my ceiling have gone out and I only have my phone camera. Photos of me in the stays will have to wait until better lightning conditions.

The Challenge: 1 - Foundation

Fabric: 80 cm of linen, 80 cm of cotton canvas, 80 cm of quilting cotton (for the lining)

Pattern: The backpiece can be traced to the RH833, but the rest is basically frankenpatterned from all over the place.

Year: 1780's
Notions: Thread, cotton bias binding, metal grommets, plastic whalebone, 4 steel bones around the grommets

How historically accurate is it? Style yes, but it's all made by machine and I've used quite a few non-period materials. I would say somewhere around 30%. They still give me my best 1780's silhouette though, compared to my more technically accurate stays.

Hours to complete: 50-60 hours (I'm slow as soon as it comes down to fitting and handsewing)

First worn: Not worn yet

Total cost: The only things I bought was the thread and the bias binding, that was around $10, but I usually count that a corset or pair of stays comes down around $50-60 when I buy new materials.

red roses stays ca 1780

So in the last days of the holidays, I felt a bit idle after having done the mockup for the gold handmaiden, but I couldn't do more on that project. Then I started to think that the HSF challenge for January is foundations, and I must get a pair of proper fitting stays before embarking on my planned 18th century projects. First a bit of advice, ask yourself these questions before starting a project:

Do I have access to a pattern?
Do I have enough material?
Do I have enough time?

Let's just say that if you answer no to all these questions, it might not be the best of ideas to start it, at least not until you can answer yes to some of them. So I didn't have a pattern, well I did have the RH833 pattern and my notes of what I didn't like with it. Then of course there are a lot of pictures online of stays patterns so I figured I could frankenpattern something. So I took the wide front, regular side, side back and center back pieces from RH833, put them on some fabrics and took a look at a bunch of stays pattern. You can find most of them on my pinterest board. I freehanded the patternpieces and came up with this pattern.

 I did a mockup of bad fabrics and could at least adjust the size and some obvious faults. The main thing was that the front was too high and wide, the side front was too wide and the curve where the side front meets the front was too curved. I knew of course that a soft fabric without boning doesn't really say anything about the fit of the corset, so I cut out the pieces in cotton canvas and a linen that I found, well aware of that I would probably have to do a lot of seam ripping. I boned the front and back pieces fully, since I was quite sure of their fit, but I only boned the middle of the side pieces, so I would have wide margins to work with.

The first full fit was a disaster. I looked like a wine barrel. I started out with taking in the seam between the front and side front, going from a seam allowance of 1 cm up at the bust to 2 cm at the waist. I also straightened the curve of that seam yet again.On the picture above you can see that there is a diagonal crease on the side front, the new seamline actually follows that crease pretty well.

The side back piece also needed to get a lot more shaping, once again taking it in at the waist. The main issue was with this piece, and it wasn't so much the size, but the placement of the boning. I had placed the boning on this piece vertically down, since I thought it would end up mostly on the back. It turns out this is more of a true sidepiece, so in order to get a better shape I unpicked all the boning channels and made new ones, that were placed diagonally on the piece.

When I had done that I felt that I was going to be annoyed that the boning channels on the side front and side back, almost, but not quite, joined up. I wanted to combine these two pieces into one single piece. By now I had run out of fabric though, so the only choice was to take a part the stays, unpick the boning channels of the side back, sew the two side pieces together and make new boning channels, then of course sew the front and back on again.

This is the new side piece.

One thing I hadn't planned to do was to have only backlacing. My front piece was so narrow though that I just wouldn't be able to fit the lacing on it. Backlacing is so annoying though, since it's so much harder to lace up yourself. With a helper I would be able to tighten the stays even more, I can definitely feel that they are sitting a bit loose, or not loose if you compare it to normal clothes but I can definitely cinch them a bit more.

Still I am pretty happy with the fit. They are a bit wide and on the high side over bust, but I think I can solve some of that when I start fiddling with how to add the straps. I also haven't cut out the tabs yet. There is some wrinkling going on at the side pieces, but considering all the wonky seams I've done to get the fit they were expected.

Oh and the name of "red roses stays" comes from the colour of the read thread, and I have a nice cotton with roses on it that I want to use for the lining.

Pattern review: Reconstrucing History 833

I have used this pattern twice now and since it is one of the easiest commercial patterns to obtain I thought that I would make a kind of review of the pattern.

Why did I choose this pattern? As I said it was easy to find, in a good price range. I also liked the fact that it included four different corsets, so that I could make a pair of stays that fitted different time periods.

Paper quality: The pattern is made on a quite sturdy sheet of paper, there are no problems trying to fold it back into the envelope. All the pieces are on just one sheet. I have noticed that the ink has started to fade though after a couple of times being taken up and folded back again.

Instructions: Now I have made my fair share of 19th century corsets, and I have also tried to make my own pair of stays, as such I maybe didn't read the instructions as thoroughly as someone who's more new to sewing might do. In the end I didn't find them quite clear, and they are mostly instructions for how to handsew the garment, so I didn't follow that at all. One thing they are definitely lacking are instructions for boning placements. There are a couple of drawings on different kind of boning and some written explanation, but nothing is marked on the pattern pieces. My first pair of stays ended up in an earlier style than I had planned, just because I put the boning in the wrong place, for my second pair I looked at a lot of pictures from other places and just took a chance with the boning placement. I would also have liked to have the use or non-use of seam allowances clearly stated.

Pattern pieces: The pattern pieces are easy to trace, there are no markings except for "on fold" and grainline. I would have like to get some more information on where the pattern pieces should be attached to each other, especially since it's quite a big difference in length between them. I tried to figure out where the waist was on all pieces and tried to get those to match each other at least. The pattern also runs large. Since there are no markings on the pattern pieces for seam allowance I added seam allowance for my first pair, and it was not easy to alter that. For my second pair I had found a byline in the instructions about a seam allowance of 3/8" (0,95 cm), still I had to take them in any way and ended up using a 2 cm seam allowance and they still lace up fully closed in the back.

The pattern also calls for a mockup in cardboard or paper, where all alterations and markings should be done before cutting the fabric. I skipped this step, but I still think some more markings would have been good.

All in all I think the pattern is a good base. If you don't want to draft your own or enlarge something for a book this pattern will give you a good basic shape. It's not a pattern that you can just cut out and use though.

RH 833, wide front, wide side an regular back

HSF 14: Under it All

I need a new pair of stays for my 1787 revolutionary gown. Since the challenge due March 1st is called "under it all" I felt that this was a good chance to really get going with the project. The bad thing is that I'm right in the middle of a month when I simply don't have much spare time. Sunday was a day when I didn't have anything planned though so I sat down  and focused on getting as much done as possible.

There are two reasons why I need a new pair of stays, eventhough I'm really happy with my other pair of stays. The first one is that the silhouette is a bit too early, eventhough I aimed for early 1780 with them they look more like in the middle of the century. For the quite extreme shape of the late 1780s I wouldn't be happy with them. The other reason is that, well the old pair of stays are blue and purple, and my revolutionary dress will be in a very sheer cotton, so I needed something that is a bit more invisible.

For the pattern I decided to go for the Reconstructing History 833 again, but this time I cut out the wide front and wide side pieces. All in all that means that there are only five pieces in the stays, front, sides and backs. For the strength layer I used cotton canvas, and then I had an unbleached linen for the outer fabric. At this point I didn't plan on any lining.

I definitely have issues with the pattern, and it runs large. Now I used a 2 cm seam allowance instead of the recommended 0.95 cm (3/8") and they still lace up fully closed. I've disregarded the instructions, but it would be nice with some kind of markings of where the pattern pieces are supposed to meet. I also find that the instructions really don't say much about boning placement, so in order to find that out I looked around a lot on pinterest to find references, both to original garments and reproductions. I gathered some of them on my underpinnings board. It will be interesting to see how the stays fit with boning placements that I chose, since it feels like quite a lot of guesswork and taking a chance. I used plastic whalebone for most of the boning, but where I could find suitable lengths of spring steel in my corset box I added that. The stays are halfboned, which is also a new thing. If it turns out that the plastic whalebone isn't strong enough for my body shape when it's used in halfboned stays I can probably change them to spring steel.

For practical reasons I've done quite a few deviations from historical accuracy. First of all it's fully machine sewn, I'm really not ready to make stays by hand yet. I've used metal grommets for the lacing, since I want it to be sturdy, and it's also quicker. I also chose to go with standard corset lacing instead of the accurate spiral lacing. I need to be able to get in and out of the stays by myself, and that is so much easier with corset lacing, especially since there isn't an opening in the front.

I think my shortcuts lowers the historical accuracy to around 40%. The materials and style is accurate, but not the construction.

At the last moment I also decided to add a lining. I had a beautiful light purple cotton, and since the outside is plain I wanted something fun for the inside.

 

My overall satisfaction with this project is so,so. Considering how little time I had I'm happy with the quality of the construction. It will work fine for this year's project, but I think that for the long term I will need to make a new pair, and in a smaller size.

Just the facts:

The Challenge: Under it All
Fabric: cotton canvas, unbleached linnen, printed cotton (from stash)
Pattern: Reconstructing History 833
Year: 1780s
Notions: plastic whalebone, spring steel, grommets, cotton bias tape, lacing, sewing thread
How historically accurate is it? 40%
Hours to complete: 12
First worn: In the house
Total cost: $20 (the fabrics are new, but I bought a lot more of them than I used for this project, everything else from the stash)