Tan Stays- Finished and Sold!

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Every time I do a project, I tell myself, "This is the one that I'm going to take pictures of its whole process!" And then it never happens. Oh well. I've got some pictures of the finished stays though, not laced or on a person but finished nonetheless.

Here's the front view! I hadn't done the strap eyelets at this point, but they are otherwise finished.

All the boning channels are machine-sewn. On about 75% of them, I had to rip out one line of stitching and re-sew it, because I'd made them too small! It was really frustrating but I made it work. My advice here is, when you're drawing your boning channels, they've got to be a bit bigger than the boning itself! 

Here is the front again, laid out like they would be worn. 

And the back.

The inside with its muslin lining. I put in the lining after doing the boning channels and putting the panels together, but before doing eyelets and binding. Ashley will only be wearing this corset for a few reenactments a year, so I didn't think she'd need a removable lining.

I hand-sewed 23 eyelets. I actually like doing eyelets, they go fairly quickly (about 5 minutes each for me) and they're pretty satisfying when you do them well. I also got a nice awl out of the deal, so that's great!

Here's a close-up of my painstaking hand-sewn binding on the tabs! I kept track of my hours on this, and the binding took me almost as long as the entire rest of the corset. Pretty crazy, eh? I watched 3 different PBS programs, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Mean Girls in English and then in French! It was ridiculous. But it looks good! 

Here's a close-up of the front. For the binding on the top edge of the stays, I machine-sewed it to the front and did the inside by hand. My tip is do the bottom binding first because it makes the top binding seem to go so much faster! 

And guess what! This is my first and possibly only entry in the Dreamstress' Historical Sew Fortnightly!

The Challenge: #13 Lace and Lacings

Fabric: The outer fabric is some sort of cotton or linen, I'm not exactly sure, with a bit of a sheen. The inside layers are canvas, and the lining is unbleached muslin. The binding is commercially available bias tape.

Pattern:  The Diderot Stays pattern, which can be found in Norah Waugh's Corsets and Crinolines but which I found on La Couturiere Parisienne. 

Year: This pattern is accurate to the 1760s/1770s.

Notions: LOTS of  tan Dual Duty thread, some heavy duty thread for eyelets, and cable ties for boning. 

How historically accurate is it? Let's see. The fabric is plausibly historical but not perfect; the bias tape has polyester in it so that's a no. Most of the stitching was done by machine with polyester thread. The binding was mostly hand-sewn, and the eyelets were hand-worked. I'm going to say maybe 70% then.

Hours to complete: 24. No joke. I kept track because it was for someone else and that's how I figure out what to charge them. 

First worn: Since this wasn't for me, I'm not sure, but I think she went to try it on right after she paid me, so... July 23 I would guess!

Total cost: I charged $225 for my work, but I actually didn't spend any money on this because Ashley bought the fabrics and notions for me. So I really don't know. 

This was quite an adventure and I'm glad I got to step away from the usual hemming and mending work people pay me for! 

-Madame Taylor

Beginnings of the Tan Stays

Monday, July 15, 2013

I was thrilled to get a commission from someone who does French and Indian War reenactment and wanted some 18th century stays made for her. Of course I jumped at the chance! When most of my summer sewing work is mending, hemming, making pillows, and other tedious tasks, a historical garment, and one I have experience with nonetheless, was a definite yes! 

So, I drafted a pattern based on Ashley's measurements, with help from La Couturiere Parisienne's helpful guide as well as various scans I found online of the Diderot stays from Corsets and Crinolines (the book is on my wishlist for sure). I messed up a bit in the original patterning and thus on my first set of stays as well: I had assumed the side seams on the pattern were in fact side seams, and drafted my pattern thus. After a little reconsideration and wondering why my pattern didn't look like the original, I realized they're about an inch back from being a true side seam! Luckily I had only cut out a mockup thusfar, and luckily it was really easy to simply chop off an inch of the back piece and tape it to the front. 

Here is a photo of the front pattern piece lying on the heavy duck fabric that I'm using for the inside layers. I made the front point shorter than usual because Ashley said that her reenactments involve more sitting than standing, and I thought that would be more comfortable for her.

The two pattern pieces side-by-side

The fronts all layered together

The backs all layered together

This is my attempt to show off the outer fabric that Ashley picked out. I think it's some sort of rough cotton or possibly linen, but it's got this silvery sheen to it which is quite lovely and quite hard to capture with a camera! (This was also to show off my new camera, which does quite well in natural light especially.)

I already have all the boning channels done but did not have time to take a picture of that yet. The eyelets will be done by hand, as will much of the binding. It is amazing how quickly sewing the boning channels went, compared to doing them by hand! 

This will be my (probably) one and only entry into the Dreamstress' Historical Sew Fortnightly, late I admit, under Lace and Lacing. I will get it done in 2 weeks however, because I'm leaving Vermont next Tuesday! Time for some speed-sewing!

-Madame T

New Additions on Colonial Williamsburg!

Friday, February 24, 2012

The Colonial Williamsburg Museum has added a lot more things to their online collection!

It can be found here.

I'm always really excited to see new extant garments! Sadly there is exactly one pair of stays, but there are several gowns and lots of accessories!

Finally: The Finished Stays

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Really they've been finished for months, but we just got a good-enough computer that could have pictures put on it. So without further ado, here are the stays (and a psuedo-historical halloween costume):









Entirely handsewn, boned with heavy-duty zip ties. Outer layer of some sort of taffeta, middle two layers of linen, inside layer of an old sheet. But what a lovely shape they give me!

The Stays

Friday, October 21, 2011

Actually, I've finished the stays. !!! I knowww!!!! But I haven't taken any pictures of them and I haven't posted these in-progress pics yet so I thought I would. Hopefully I can take some really awesome (read: not iPhone) pictures of them soon.

Here's the front:

And the side. My face was rather derpy so I cropped it.

And the best one of the lot, the back:

Gotta love that spiral lacing. Even if it's a little wonky in these pictures.

I will totally post a real, detailed post about this, I promise.

In other news, I was the lead in Cinderella of Loreland at my school, for which I made this:

It's a goodwill skirt with a bajillion patches added. It was like, freehand patchwork. Took forever. But it was very effective. Obviously that's not the top I wore. Hopefully, more on Cinderella later, too. I also made my ballgown!

-Madame Taylor

18th Century Cottons

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

When making an 18th century dress (or any historical garment before the advent of synthetic fabrics) you have essentially four options: wool, silk, cotton, and linen. Of course, the most common of these today is cotton. But most cotton isn't appropriate for 18th century clothing because of the print. So what cotton prints are appropriate?

I did some research. All the gowns in this post are cotton.

First we have the most common kind of cotton print. White or cream background with some sort of floral, viney pattern.

From UK Fashion Museum

From Meg Andrews

From Historic New England

These are really the quintessential cotton gown. Some of the patterns are more dense but follow the same basic principle:

From Augusta Auctions

From LACMA

And here is another example of the floral-on-white pattern:

From MFA Boston

There are other floral prints that aren't so viney but are more spaced out. Prints like these are easier to find these days. These prints remind me of a garden tea party.

From the V&A

And there are also some ridiculously big floral splotches on white, like these two:

From LACMA

From the Met

That first one is a little ridiculous! It's like, neon fruits. Almost graphic! Also, check out the border print on the second one.

Then we have stripes. It appears that stripes, when used on cotton, were more for work dresses or for middle- to lower-class gowns. You probably wouldn't see Marie Antoinette at a ball in a cotton dress of any print.

This gown is the only cotton striped gown I could find online.

From the Philadelphia Museum of Art

It's hard to tell, but it's got tiny blue stripes all over. The pattern is: wide white stripe, narrow blue, narrow white, narrow blue, wide white, etc. The page says that it was a middle-class woman's gown.

Finally, there are some surprising prints that don't really fit into any of these categories. This is the weirdest 18th century dress I have ever seen.

The print looks way more 1840s-1860s to me than 1780s! Here is a close-up of the fabric;

Weird. But it's comforting because I can so see this being in a store today. These are from the V&A.

So, you ask, where can I actually get a moderately accurate looking fabric to make a cotton gown out of? There are online stores that specialize in that sort of thing.

-Time Travel Textiles

-Burnley and Trowbridge

-Wm. Booth

-Reproduction Fabrics

I haven't personally ordered from any of these so I can't really tell you which are good.

Some other articles on the topic:

-Fabrics for 18th Century Costumes at La Couturiere Parisienne

(She has fabulous articles on everything 18th C.)

-18th Century Printed Cotton Fabrics at Demode

Progress on the 1/4 Scale Stays

Friday, August 5, 2011

So remember those 1/4 scale 18th century things I told you about? Well, I thought I'd post about the progress I'm making!

I started the polonaise first and realized it doesn't fit my miniature dummy, who was made for the renaissance stays. So I decided to make a new dummy, but first I'd need to make some stays to go with the dress. So off I went.

I got the basis for my pattern from here and then fixed up the dress bodice pattern to look more like that. The boning layout is also based on that.

I traced around the pieces onto "linen" (cotton scraps) and "silk" (poly satin). Once they were cut out I started sewing the layers together. There were some "oops" moments, including the one when I realized I couldn't get boning in from the top if the top was already sewn shut! Luckily I remedied this. Here is a picture of half the front, the piece I've currently made the most progress on:

The green is my "sturdy layer." There's going to be another lining after it's all together.

And here are all the pieces laid out side by side.

I haven't slit all the tabs yet because poly satin frays like nobody's business. For the edges I'm basically doing some sort of buttonhole whipstitch around them. Yes, I know it will take forever. I didn't start this because I wanted a quick project!

So that's those. I'll hopefully post about the dress itself soon.