18th Century Stays

January 1, 2010

Wow, it is going to be hard to get used to typing "2010" as the year now that January has begun. At any rate, today is the first day of the year and I am resolved to make these stays within the year - hopefully within the month - and feel accomplished about that.

To begin with, I have wanted to make 18th century stays for a long time. As in, since I was thirteen or fourteen years old. (I am now twenty-three). A few years ago my parents got me the J.P. Ryan 18th C Strapless Stays pattern as well as the 18th C Basic Wardrobe pattern but beyond making up a linen canvas interior, as a mock up, I never made the stays. I was a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work that making stays seemed to entail. The tiny channels, the use of so much boning. Plus I had no event or reason to make or wear 18th century stays beyond my own personal satisfaction so I didn't really feel the need to get any done.

Lately though, I have been madly renewing my interest in 18th century fashion, particularly the last quarter of the 18th century. I like to dress historical for every day wear now so making these stays would not be impractical since I can use them for every day wear. Plus I want to make a Caraco jacket and petticoat and stays will provide the proper foundation!

Thus, this being decided, I set off on a quest to read about how to make an accurate pair of stays from this time period. I am really starting from nothing with this era. I have very little prior knowledge of any construction techniques or cut, or style. It is all pretty new to me but I am so thankful for so many other costumers who have shared a lot of information about constructing these kind of stays. Sites that hugely helped me (and are continuing to educate me as I reference them all the time) are these:

Mara Riley's Instructions on Making 18th Century Stays

Making 18th Century Stays from The Marquise Website

Cherry Dawsons Stays Workshop Notes

Jenny La Fleurs Dress Diaries

There is also a fabulous blog dedicated to all things 18th century stays but I can't seem to find the link to it right now. . .I will update the link as soon as I come across it again.
Stage 1: The Style

As I researched more, I found out that there is an option to the fully boned stays of the 18th century. . .half boned stays. I was very interested to read about these on the Marquise site because they are made of an inner layer ("basis") that is boned and then the smooth outer layer and lining are attached so that in the final stays, the bone channels do not show. I decided I wanted to try this style since I didn't have to worry about hand stitching a whole set of stays (since anything visible must be handsewn) only to find out that they did not fit right, or had some other problem.

The pattern given on the marquise site called for stays with a front piece and back piece - that is it. Compared to the many pieces of my J.P. Ryan pattern for strapless, fully boned stays, this style seemed very simple. The problem was coming up with a pattern for it.

Stage 2: The Pattern

Ah, the pattern. Give me some measurements and I can whip up a mid 19th century style corset pattern in no time. 18th century style corset?

I tried. For weeks.

At first, I thought I would just drape a pattern on my own body. This did not work. I pinned a rectangle of fabric to myself (wearing a tight fitting cami) down the center front to mark the center front of the corset. I tried smoothly pinning the fabric to the contours of my body but got stuck when I reached the side, and it was impossible to drape upon my own back. The rather deformed looking pattern that resulted gave birth to a few dreadful mock ups, but that was all. I scrapped that.

I then thought I could tape the pieces of my JP Ryan strapless stays pattern together along the seam lines to get a complete shape for stays, and then divide the finished shape into two, to get a front and back. But the problem there was that the only size I have in the JP Ryan pattern is a size 10 and I have. . .ahem. . .grown some since when I first got this pattern. And the neckline shapes weren't right and I didn't know if the pattern would fit lengthwise anyway, even though I could alter the width if I had to.

Then I looked at Mara Riley's instructions again and noticed that she starts with a corset pattern made from the custom corset pattern generator and adapts that for 18th century stays. At first I did not want to do this since it seemed so. . .easy. . .and, well, aren't stays supposed to be hard?

But at last, I did. I entered in my measurements to a form on the computer and received instructions step by step on how to draw out a personalized corset pattern. It was free. It took maybe fifteen minutes. It was. . .easy.

Following Mara Riley's instructional photos, I altered the shape of the armpit area and hip area just a tad (making a more curved shape) and then I divided my finished corset pattern (half) into four shapes, making a front piece, a side front piece, a back side piece and a back piece. I drew in all my boning lines for where I wanted to place boning and also drew in the tabs. At last I had the beginnings of a workable pattern!I did not want to cut into this "master pattern" to use as my working pattern so I copied the shape and pieces and added seam allowances. Here is the new pattern newly traced onto brown paper, with the seam allowances. The center back edge has a 1" extension for the top layer of fabric of the stays, which is to fold over to the inside and finish the back edge for the last boning channel before I attach the lining and bind the whole thing. Otherwise all the other layers will be cut as normal. Here are the pattern pieces cut out and ready to go! I have been so blissfully content looking at my master pattern and traced working pattern that I have not yet started on the actual construction of these yet. I wanted to get started on them today, but anticipation is half the fun of creation, right? :)

Stage 3: Fabrics

I want to use fabrics I have on hand so as to make this project as inexpensive as possible.

The "basis" should be a strong and stiff linen canvas. I do not have linen canvas and can't really afford any right now, so I'm using cotton canvas instead. I don't really know if there is much difference between linen and cotton canvas, but I do know I've used cotton canvas as the interlining of a mid-19th century corset for my very well-endowed mother in law and it has held up very nicely, even though machine washings and dryings. So I hope it will work out all right for this style corset.

The outer fabric could be a silk, linen or wool. I have pink linen but don't really want a pink set of stays since I already have a pink mid-19th century corset. One should have some variety in one's wardrobe, you know. I looked through my wool and at first thought I'd use some black and silver wool/silk blend for the outer layer. But then I came across a smallish piece of plum colored wool that I had forgot I had - left over from a very long ago project with the scraps subsequently used for many different things. I folded the little piece of wool in half and laid the stays pattern on it and it just exactly fit. So it seems predestined. The plum wool will be my outer layer.

The lining will be of the pink linen. I also have some white linen but I think the pink will help tone down the harshness of the plum wool and add a cheerful, rosy color to it.

The binding will most likely be fabric binding cut on the straight. I am not sure what fabric I will use yet but I think I will have to buy something specifically for this. I want something very light yet strong so I think silk would be a good option. As for color, I would like a silver-blue or robins-egg-blue or apple-green. I'll have to go to the store and see what their selection is like.

Love,

Sarah

January 4, 2010

I was able to work on my stays a bit over the weekend. It was with fear and trembling I cut out the pattern pieces. I am making the basis first, so am only cutting out what I will sew up right away. I haven't cut out the wool outer layer or linen lining yet. I will do that as I come to them.

Stage 4: Making the Basis

I cut out 4 of each side back and side front pattern piece and two of each front and back (on the fold), to give me two complete whole layers of the finished corset pieces. The canvas I am using is so stiff that I used weights and traced around each pattern piece instead of pinning the pieces to the canvas. I tried pinning at first, but due to the stiffness of the fabric the pattern piece became distored when a pin was used. Here are all the pieces cut out. I cut each back piece and each front piece with the straight edge against the fold.The folded edge of the back pieces will be used as a back finish. All I will need to do is sew a line about 1/2" in from the edge, and this will create my back boning channel. The folded edge of the bodice front could work the same way if I wanted a front opening on these stays as well as a back opening. I don't plan on making a front opening, so I opened up each front piece and layed the two pieces on top of each other. I then sewed all the pieces together, treating the two layers as one. I am doing all this sewing by machine since this layer will be hidden betweenthe lining and the outer layer and there is no way anyone will ever see it unless they take apart my stays!Once I did that, I pressed all the seams towards the back. The Marquise 18th century stays instructions call for pressing the seams to one side since that strengthens the seam. However, some other costumers press the seams open and whip them down. I debated about what to do but in the end pressed the seams to one side. This DOES create a stronger seam. If you open up your seams, the stress is all on the threads connecting the two layers of the seam. I always press all my seams towards the side for almost all the historical (and even modern) garments I make. It just works so much better. I then basted around the neckline and the front lower curve on the stays so they would not stretch or distort. I marked all my boning channels, following the lines on my "master pattern" and sewed all the channels. I found I had to make my channels a little wider than I had originally thought since I hadn't taken into account the thickness of the boning material, just the width. Instead of a 3/8" channel I needed to make a 1/2" channel to allow the bone easy passage into the channel. Which brings us to: Stage 5: Boning Materials

In Costume in Detail, the half-boned stays described are boned with whalebone. Needless to say, whalebone is not available anymore as a corset stiffener. After reading lots of costume and corset-makers opinions, I decided a while ago to try cable ties as a corset stiffener and substitute for whalebone. The majority of the opinions I read said that cable ties have the same flexible properties as whalebone, flexing not only front to back but also side to side. Yet they are stiff and quite unbreakable. What's also nice is that they are locally available and relatively cheap. Since then, I've made a few corsets using the heavy duty cable ties in place of steel boning, including my current mid-19th century style corset. I really like how they have held up - even for my aforementioned well endowed mother in law - and they do conform a bit to my body shape, which makes them very comfortable. In extant examples of corsets, you can also find this curved shape which the whalebone takes on after you have worn it a while.

Here are the partially boned stays. I only had enough on hand to bone the front of the stays. I will need to pick up another package to finish out the rest. I think the total number of bones I'm using is thirty-two - by far the most bones I've ever used in any corset! To cut a bone, I slid a cable tie into the channel and clipped off the end to the length it needed to be. Next up is finishing the boning and cutting out the wool outer layer.

Love,

Sarah

January 7, 2010

I have been able to make some good progress on the stays so far this week. I was imagining them to take a long time to finish, but these seem to be working up pretty quickly, even with handsewing everything that can be seen from the inside layer or outside layer and even with having to do this sewing work in between naps and times of very short quietness for boys playing with legos and blocks and cars and Mr. Potato Head.

A few days ago, I finished the boning by inserting the rest of the boning into the sewn channels. For the horizontal front boning, I sewed on casings made of cotton twill tape and inserted the boning in those. At this point, I noticed the pressed-to-one-side seams were quite bulky and I did not think the seam allowances would be balanced by pressing the lightweight wool or linen lining seam allowances to the other side so I decided to press the seams open. It is much flatter now and works much better. I tacked down the seam allowances with a loose (rather sloppy)whipstitch in red silk thread just to hold them in place while I finished the rest of the layers. Stage 6: Making and Attaching the Outer ShellI then cut out one layer of wool and sewed the pieces together to make the outer shell. The back edges were cut 1.5" beyond the finished edge of the basis. I layed the wool layer on top of the basis and pinned it all around and folded the excess back width to the inside of the stays and whip stitched it down.I debated for a while about how to finish the back edge and was at first going to just bind it, but I read about this method of finishing the edge in my JP Ryan Strapless Stays pattern so I decided to try this since it seemed like less work. :P I then basted the wool layer all around with loose whip stitch in black cotton thread to the canvas basis and attached the wool layer to the basis at each seam by "stitching in the ditch". I detest stitching in the ditch. But I got the disagreeable task accomplished and moved on.

Stage 7: Making and Attaching the Lining

My next thing to do was to cut out the lining layer. It was cut out like the wool layer, but the back edge was cut on the normal line, not with an extension. I folded the seam allowances to the wrong side on each piece and pinned them to the basis, matching the seam lines. One by one I stitched the lining pieces to the basis. Here you can see most of the lining sewn in with just a little left to go:Once that was done I pinned the stays on my stuffed dressform to get an idea of how they would look. I am pretty happy with how they look so far! I need to steam shrink the wool layer to the basis since it stretched a little but otherwise so far so good!

Stage 8: Straps and Tabs

Last night I cut and sewed on the straps. They are made of layers of canvas, wool and linen just like the corset. I sewed the wool layer to the stays by laying it right sides together with the wool layer of the corset and sewing it to the "stub" that extends on the back corset piece. I then treated the canvas and linen as one and sewed it right sides together with the linen going along the same seam line. This method encases the seam allowance between the layers of the strap, so that no seam allowances are visible from either the inside or outside. I pinned the layers together and will later probably baste them together before I put the binding on. Last but not least I did what was the most tedious part so far - cutting the tabs. I laid out the stays on my work surface and marked the tabs with a fabric pencil. Then, one by one I cut out each tab. As soon as one tab was cut I quickly basted all the layers of the tab together with a closer whip stitch since I have dreadful fears of the tab layers shifting, stretching or fraying. Hopefully this will keep everything nicely in place until I get the binding put on.So that is where construction now stands! I need to cut the binding strips and start binding this thing and then lastly work the eyelets. . .For the binding I'm using some gold/brown changeable taffeta I found that I had forgot I had. I don't think it is real silk taffeta but for binding it should work fine. It is very sturdily woven and is light and is pretty and was very inexpensive, being bought as remnants at a thrift store. (3 yards for $1.50!) This has all in all been a very cheap project, using mostly stashed materials! The only expense so far has been the extra cable ties, which were $6 or so for a big package (and I only used about a quarter of them).

Hopefully we'll have finished stays by the weekend!

Love,
Sarah