1776 stays FINALLY DONE!!

Whew!! I spent every spare minute of the last two weeks sewing, alternating between Melissa's costume and mine. I finally finished binding my stays last Thursday, just in time for Sherwood Forest on Saturday. It was so much fun. I had a glass of mead, a shredded troll sandwich, and frozen chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick. I really wanted another glass of mead, but my allergies and sinuses were really bad, which often triggers my migraines. I already had a slight headache, and it was a super windy day with loads of dust and pollen in the air. I learned the hard way not to drink too much mead when my sinuses are acting up.

We got tons of compliments. In the previous two years, we've gotten precisely two compliments (one per year). Actually, those compliments were directed at Melissa, even though our costumes were the same (except made from different fabric) because I made them. But Melissa is beautiful and carries herself with confidence whereas I feel like a shy little mouse.

So I counted at least seven compliments this year, and many of them were from ladies who said they were experienced seamstresses. Many of them asked questions about the boning and a couple of them even called them stays, which is when you know someone knows their stuff. Others called them bodices or corsets, but I didn't care. It made all that hard, tedious work so worthwhile.

Here are a few pics.

I hate my face. Why couldn't God have blessed me with a nice jawline?

My stays...

Melissa's stays...

I love the lacing on these.

Look at that pattern matching!

A few construction notes... For each pair of stays, I used 3/16" half-oval basketry reed for the boning, and just put two in each boning channel, flat sides together. Boning channels were 1/2" wide. For the front lacing strips, I used 1/4" heavy duty steel boning. For the back lacing strips, I used regular 1/4" spring steel boning.

I bound my stays using very thin, soft, flexible leather. Melissa used narrow bias tape, but I can't remember if it was single- or double-fold. I made Melissa's stays but she did the binding on them and did a great job! She's never even done it before!

I know the edges aren't supposed to touch.

I shaved a little off the side back seam for Melissa's stays and she loved how snug they were. I accidentally cut the armholes of her stays too big. Mine felt snug but I could breath in them easily, and I wished I could have laced them tighter.

They were extremely comfortable, the reed boning held up beautifully, and the style is just gorgeous. Only two pattern pieces (okay, three if you could the shoulder strap), but I couldn't imagine achieving a better fit with a pattern that has more pieces. They can really cinch in your waist, and they make your bust area look amazing. I highly recommend the 1776 stays pattern from Corsets and Crinolines.

1776 Stays - First try-on and a few notes

Isabella's comment about front-lacing stays making it easier to get dressed reminded me that I didn't have to wait for someone to lace me up so that I could try on my stays and see how they fit. So I duly pulled on my chemise, petticoat, and skirt, took a deep breath and said some prayers, and slipped on the stays and laced them up. Then looked in the mirror and felt like jumping up and down with excitement.

The fit is AMAZING. The silhouette they give is AMAZING! I believe it would look good on anyone, any body type, any size. And being that this was the first pattern I've ever gotten from a book, scaled up, and then took the time to fit it to my figure, it felt like a MIRACLE that my efforts actually WORKED!! Can I be considered a sewist of intermediate skill level now???

They aren't perfect. For one thing, somehow I made them too big and the front and back lacing channels close completely, which is a bummer because I like to lace tight because the stays always loosen up after a few hours. They are tight, don't get me wrong. But I could stand to lace them a lot tighter. I expected either the front or the back to close completely, but not both. I can't think how to fix this at this point because taking the stays in at the side seam would move the shoulder straps/armscye back too much, and that part is already borderline about-to-not-fit. But that's easily fixed in the pattern and in fact I've traced Melissa's pattern to move the shoulder straps a little more towards center front and have taken in the side-back seam a bit. For myself, perhaps I can make a stomacher with a busk to take up some space so that when they are all laced up, it will help keep them snug as they loosen up.

Also, I have no idea if these two tabs at the side are supposed to be touching or not, nor do I know how to fix it. But I don't think it's a glaring mistake.

I bought a lovely piece of soft, thin leather off of ebay to use for binding. It's a little thicker than chamois, not much, but it's just a little bit more difficult to get a pin into to hold it in place while I'm sewing it on.

These little clips from Dritz (or was it Clover?), which I found in the quilting section at Joann's, are PERFECT for this job.

My needle wasn't doing a very great job at piercing the binding, so I bought some leather needles and some embroidery needles. A couple of bloggers I read mentioned not wanting to use leather needles because they leave too big a hole, but I wanted to try them anyway.

This bit was done entirely with a leather needle. I've taken as good of a close-up as I can, and I see nothing to concern me re: size of the hole left by a leather needle. I used Dritz leather needles and I used the smallest one in the package:

I was very happy with the leather needles as they go through the leather quite easily. That being the case, they also go through FLESH quite easily and I got a couple of nasty cuts in my fingers until I got used to using the needle.

Last night I bound a tab with a new embroidery needle and it worked just fine. I don't know what kind of needle my old one was (a dull one. Haha!) but I threw it away and I think I'll just use the embroidery needle for now because I don't want to get blood on my white stays due to carelessness with the leather needles.

Oh, and it seems to take me about an hour to bind each tab. At this rate it's going to take me right up till the last week of Sherwood Forest before my costume is ready! I am quite relieved to know that my skirt and chemise are now done (except to sew ribbon ties onto the cuffs of the chemise) and that the stays fit. Now I just need to make Melissa's stuff, but I think I'm going to have to teach her to bind the stays herself because of timing issues. I did try my stays on her and they fit her perfectly, so at least I don't have to make muslins to fit her.

New Renaissance fest costume in the works

How do the days pass so quickly? It seems like just yesterday I decided to make a new pirate costume for the Renaissance fest, but it must have been more like 3 weeks ago. I've been thinking about it and planning and thinking about it and stressing and thinking about it and suddenly I realized this weekend that I only had about two weeks left to make the following:

Corset
Chemise
Bodice
Skirt
Underskirt

To this end, I ordered a bunch of lovely 100% cotton jacquard fabrics from FabricMart.com for just $3.50 a yard! I will post about these later. But in a stunningly practical move, I am not using any of them in my costume. I feel really stressed out whenever I spend more than $50 at a time, but they had a 20% off coupon for first-time shoppers so I got 25 yards of fabric for just $78.00 and that includes the shipping. And I mean, the price was unbeatable.

I made am making my corset from a vintage tablecloth that my lovely friend Kristine gave me. It's pale yellow and is printed with dogwoods, so it already has two of my favorite things going for it. It's a tight weave, so I can use it in a single-layer corset.

I think it's darling. I am using Simplicity 2890, which I picked up at Joann's for $1.00. The corset was designed by fashion historian Kay Gnagey and I have actually worn one of her corsets a few times and loved it. It's my ideal corset. Originally this was going to be a practice piece but I decided to just make it all the way because a) I am too lazy to fit a corset properly to my figure, b) my figure is pretty much made for Victorian/Civil War era corsets, being an hourglass shape, proportionate boobs to hips, and short-waisted, and c) I don't have time to make another one before the Ren fest.

This was my first time inserting gussets into anything, and it could have been a rage-fest but I found this wonderful tutorial before I ever started, and that made everything a breeze. That being said, I forgot to do a 5/8" seam allowance, doing a 3/8" instead, so the bust is too big. I don't really care right now.

I'm still trying to decide if I'll use 1/4" zip ties for the boning or order steel boning. Steel boning isn't really that much more expensive than zip ties. It's the corset busk that's kind of expensive--and that damn shipping--so I might as well just get proper boning. I need to make a decision soon.

I almost ordered all that stuff this weekend but then froze with indecision because, in my usual can't-do-anything-in-moderation fashion, I thought as long as I'm ordering boning for one corset, why not order boning for FOUR CORSETS??? The shipping will be the same, and I want to make this corset again, and I have another Simplicity corset pattern I want to try, and since that other one looks easy maybe I should just make TWO of it also!?!?!?!

Moving on, I am using a 1970s dress pattern for the chemise/blouse. I get a lot of my patterns at my favorite thrift store, and they come 2-3 in a package. So for every one that I buy, I get two extras that are usually not something I'm interested in. I've been listing those extra patterns on my Etsy store, but there are a handful that I have put in the "No Redeeming Qualities" category destined for my trashcan. This was one of them. But juuuuuust as I was about to throw it out, View A suddenly struck me as an AWESOME lady pirate blouse.

Look at it.

LOOK AT IT.

I am going to use a sheer linen swag that my friend Melissa found for me at the Goodwill outlet last year. I should probably save it for something more important than a pirate chemise, but I'm trying to save money where I can. What's the point of having a fabric stash if you don't use it?

I'm going set the elastic slightly higher on the sleeve and then trim the cuff which white lace bordered with gold lace at the top, like so:

For the bodice and skirt, I'm going to use this Simplicity 3809, View A. I originally had grand plans to make an underskirt out of some of the white cotton jacquard I got from FabricMart, and make a bustled overskirt from the Janet Arnold book, which would have meant rescaling the pattern and being amazingly talented. But for the sake of simplicity (hahahaha), and lack of time, I'm just going to have to settle for a Big Four pattern. But it will still be cute!!

I am pissed off at Joann's for having their linen fabrics 30% off for the past two weeks at least, which means I can't use any of the 50% off coupons I've had. Assholes. I really don't want to spend $45 on fabric if I can avoid it. So after much stress and fuming, I've decided to dye my dark brown linen skirt from my previous Ren fest outfit black. And to make the bodice from a jacquard tablecloth I've had squirreled away and dye that black to match.

I spent 8 hours online yesterday picking out gold Venice lace trims for this outfit, only to realize that if I trimmed it like I wanted to, I'd end up spending some $50-$60 on lace. I can't afford that right now. So after all that, I just got 10 yards of one type of lace and I guess I'll be spending about $27 which includes the shipping, which is nice and cheap as far as that kind of thing goes.

Now I just need to stop thinking about stuff and actually do something about it.