The making of...
I have two corset books, and I bet you can guess what they are. The first is, of course, Corsets and Crinolines by Nora Waugh, and the other is Corsets by Jill Salen. I looked through them both at the era I wanted, and due to the character in the story's circumstances I could also go for late 1770s.
I came across this pattern in Waugh. A pair of stays circa 1776, and I'll admit I became confused about the timeline of fashions. I thought those lovely Pierrot jackets and zone-front gowns were 1770s instead of 1780s, that paired with the fact that the 1776 pair of stays only have 2 pieces sold me on this. It was only after I'd finalised the pattern I started to realise it was a little earlier, but I'm actually really glad I started with this pattern as they are my first pair of stays.
The only snag with these patterns is that they don't come with instructions. Luckily some clever costumers have already been here and have been kind enough to share their process in the form of a tutorial. I found this series of articles, and these by Tea in a teacup incredible helpful, so a big thank you to them!
I, unfortunately, didn't read all of the instructions in depth, and so there are some things that are probably not quite right with my stays, but hey, we live and learn. Even worse was that I found out what I'd done wrong after hand sewing 60+ eyelets. Oh well, it was therapeutic.
I started by having issues with the scale. The little grid thing at the bottom measures about 1.25 inches, which means for every 1.25 inches on paper it's 5 inches in real life (if I remember my schooling correctly). This is when my mind just went blank. I don't understand why I have a career in statistics when I'm utterly sh*t with numbers and arithmetic. I don't like 1.25, I don't like inches solely because they work in fractions. I tried cm. Not sure if you can see where I'm going with this.
Every 3cm on paper is 5 inches in reality. Bingo, a nice whole number. But when you do all of the maths and conversions you end up with final measurements in inches not cm, a small fact I forgot. Without going into painful detail scaling this up took me ages. I know, you can do it by scanning the image and then blowing it up using Powerpoint or other software, but I don't own a printer, and I wasn't taking this into work, so I drew this pattern by hand. Thanks Secondary school level trigonometry! I'm competent at drawing curves by hand.
Eventually, after a lot of muddling and getting the calculator whipped out, I managed to scale this up to its original size. I measured the waist and bust, and then began to enlarge. The first problem is that I failed to take into account the ratio of the two pieces. You can clearly see that the front is wider than the back. I assumed it was an exact side seam, because in the completed pictures it looks like that to me. I'm not sure if the back is narrower because that was the design of 18th century stays, or if the owner had a lacing gap (another problem of later). Needless to say I designed my stays to have a side seam right at the side. So my back piece is quite wide.
I made a mock-up of this, confident it wouldn't need much alteration since I'd scaled it up to my measurements. I kept the CF seam, so slipped it on over my head and tried to lace it from the back (bad idea). I managed barely to lace it closed at the back, but not properly as the laces were all over the place, and it was big. No surprise where it was the biggest (chest). It actually fitted perfectly at the waist. I don't know what happened with the bust, but this is always a problem for me.
After the massive problems with trying to lace myself into spiral-laced back-closing stays, I decided to make it both CF and CB closing, with the CB only really being for show or alteration to fit. My logic has perhaps been taken from my Victorian corsetry experience, and I learned in this project that they are not the same thing. In victorian corsetry you usually have a 2" or bigger lacing gap, and of course you have a busk closure (after the 1840s). With the stays I'd seen made they also had a lacing gap of about the same. I thought that all lacing gaps, including front ones, should have this gap, and so I factored in a front lacing gap of about 1". I didn't realise that it probably should lace entirely closed at the front until it was too late to change it. Oh well, lesson learned for the next pair.
My second mock-up was perfect, to my specifications anyway, so I set to cutting out my fabric. I knew from research that stays are usually 3 or 4 layers; 1x interlining (2nd is optional), 1x lining, 1x outer fabric. I intended on using linen for this entire project, until I couldn't find appropriate, or appropriately priced, linen canvas. I opted for cotton canvas instead. I chose linen for the outer layer, and linen isn't the strongest of fabric, it's quite loosely woven, so I didn't want my boning working its way through, so I went for 2x interlining layers, then linen on top, but the boning channels would be stitched through all 3 layers because I like the look of the bones.
The cotton canvas I bought was this lovely jade green, purple linen for the outer layer, and white linen for the lining. Then came my second mistake. I didn't read the tutorials properly. Rather than assembling each layer separately, I kind of flatlined the linen with the cotton canvas interlining, taking them all as one piece (excluding the lining because I knew that had to go on separately). Instead of assembling them individually, turning the seam allowances opposite ways, and then basting together, I just have very thick side seams. It might not make that much of a difference shape wise, but I know for next time.
Then began tracing the boning pattern (which had taken me ages to transfer/size-up). It took ages, especially the wee ones on the tabs. I also thought using red thread on purple was a good design choice, but if you've read this blog for a while you'll know I'm terrible with colours.
After they were finished I set to putting the boning in the boning channels. There seems to be this online debate about what type of boning to use for stays. Spiral steel (which I've used extensively for Victorian corsets) isn't suitable. Some people advocated Reed because its HA, but then I read somewhere that if it snaps it's a bit of a nightmare. Recently I had stumbled onto the false/plastic whalebone made by a company in Germany that's meant to mimic the effects of whalebone/baleen which would have been used in stays and Victorian corsetry.
I decided to invest, and I'm sad I didn't do it before. This stuff is amazing to work with! It's easy to draw on (so you know where to cut), it cuts so easily (with a specialised cutting tool available online for reasonable price), and it's so lightweight. I have always found the spiral steel, when you use a lot of it on corsets like I have to do, makes the garment heavy. Not this stuff. I love it, and have vowed to forever use it on any stays or corsets I make in the future. Oh, and it's cheaper than spiral steel. No more finicking around with metal end caps, all you need to remove the edges is a nail file.....that's right, a normal nail file you probably have lying around. For extra fabric protection I wrapped the ends in plumber's tape, but there were a few that went in bare (because some boning channels were a little stingy in size). We'll see if it makes a difference, but I highly recommend this stuff for all of your supporting needs.
After I boned it, it got left. I had to make an apron for my Gran's Christmas, and over Christmas I had Victorian undergarments to make, and then in 2018 it was full-on Ball stuff, so this project was left. I only had the binding to do, but you can probably tell why I stopped here. I wasn't looking forward to binding those tabs, and I still hadn't decided what to use. I had ribbon I was intending to use. From what I learned in my research it was better to have thinner binding, and all commercially made bias binding is quite thick. I could make bias binding out of the remaining purple linen, but then I wouldn't have a nice contrast. I was a bit doubtful about the poly ribbon because it seemed a little thin to be useful binding. The final one was chamoise leather, which sounds fancy but I have two pieces in my car that my dad gave me, because chamoise leather is also known as "wash leathers", and is the material on de-mister pads. Bad thing was I could only find it in the UK in yellow.
