Stays for Days

I said in an earlier post that I strongly dislike making historical undergarments. Making stays seems to have done something to my brain, because a few weeks back, I spent the weekend sewing and cording a pair of ladies' short stays, and while sewing cording channels did start to get dull toward the end (I cheated and used the sewing machine for this bit), I thoroughly enjoyed cording and assembling them. 

The first portion of cording underway with the help of a circa 1900 needle.

Stays front ready for cording

I used Laughing Moon 115 for these, opting for the short stays option. For cording, I used cotton yarn from my stash, and salvaged zip ties from my failed half-boned stays for the couple of places boning was required. For a busk, I'm going to use a paint stirrer, as was recommended as a "cheat" by the pattern. I happened to have one lying around the house, and it fits perfectly in width! One unfortunate issue with this pattern is the cup size. I went with my recommended size, and it was still too large. I'll have to pad the cups out in order to make it work, but to be honest, I was probably going to anyway. I'm not well-endowed in the chest region, and this era featured a rather prominent bosom. 

 

Need to add busk in and tie straps, but otherwise complete!

Back

I'm also working on a new set of 18th century stays. My previous pair, from the AD Simplicity pattern, were good to start with, but the fit really wasn't ideal for me. Before I make any other new 18th century garments, I decided that I needed new, more historically accurate stays, so I purchased the print-at-home version of the Scroop/Virgil's Fine Goods Augusta stays. 

I purchased linen from my local fabric store and German plastic boning (real artificial whalebone this time!) from Burnley & Trowbridge. I wanted this pair to be as high quality as possible. There's nothing wrong about doing it on a budget, but now that my skills have leveled up and I know that I'm serious about 18th century historical costuming, I want a pair of really good stays. These work for 1775-1789, so a nice range of silhouettes in the later part of the 18th century. 

The difference the German plastic boning makes is immediately noticeable. The stays have a much firmer structure, and I found that it is a little easier to work with than zip ties. I machine-stitched my boning channels, because while I have learned that I actually enjoy hand sewing, I just don't have the time or energy to hand-sew everything. Except for eyelets. I really don't enjoy eyelets. This is mainly because I'm not very good at them. Using my new bone awl from Burnley & Trowbridge did make a world of difference in the ease of creating the holes, but I feel like my hand-stitching leaves much to be desired. 

First attempt at hand-sewn eyelets in a while

As I'm completing the binding, I've been looking at a lot of other images of the Augusta stays, and I believe I chose a too-wide twill tape for the edges. I had been on the fence about using leather binding, but with this mistake in mind, I'll get them redone over the summer, and maybe even do some taping detail! 

New on left, old on right.

Forgive the background, I was just so excited for the final try-on before finishing touches! I opted to use some navy blue cording from my stash, and I love the contrast against the biscuit linen. I am once again unintentionally keeping on a color theme--the lacing on my stays is a close color match to my linen petticoat.

 

It's interesting that the feel of these is not dramatically different than that of my first set of stays, but the difference in silhouette is incredible. I have a photo below of the side-by-side comparison. The old stays aren't bad, but they offer a much slimmer, straighter silhouette than is ideal for 1770s-1790s. I have a fairly slim silhouette naturally, so the cut of the Augusta stays with its larger, more flared tabs and front lacing to allow for a more exaggerated bust gives me a wider range of historical silhouette options. 

99% done!