18th Century Corsets

I ended up taking the 18th Century Butterick Corset Pattern and redrafted it. I cut the back lower, added 6"s to the waist reshaped the side piece a bit and changed the boning pattern. I cut it out of a beautiful piece of Goldenrod colored silk (though it doesn't show right in the photos) and did the channels in blue thread to mimic the inspiration images. For interfacing I used some cotton canvas. I will line it in white muslin.

 

 

 

For my daughters little corset I modeled it after an original example I found on Pinterest. I will have to try and look it up again. I cut hers out of a small piece of purple silk I had and am doing it with 2 layers of muslin. I don't want it tight or uncomfortable so it will also be very lightly boned and nothing like the original in that regard.

 



And the winner is....Yellow!

I need to make different 18th Century stays to go with my outfit for The Gathering of Rebels. I looked at patterns and read reviews and just decided to draft my own. I am not sure yet if they are going to be fully, or half-boned stays, as I could do either with the particular design. All I know it that I will have them lace both in the back and the front and they MUST be in yellow. I have seen so many pictures of yellow corsets from the 18th Century, and was inspired by these two. What I have on hand is a bit more goldenrod, but it still should work.

Whoops...

Well as per the norm, going to the Regency Tea did not work out. Now we are setting out sights on The Gathering of Rebels on October 26th. Loads of costume stuff to do for that one, and I have yet to get started. The fabrics I need have been alluding me! I thought I was set with my Stays, but they did not work either. I had adjusted the length from the waist but they are STILL way shorter than I wanted them, so it sits in a pile where I threw it, with about 2 feet of binding left to go. I will finish it later but right now I am too mad. So I need an outfit for me, my son, my daughter, and my son's girlfriend. Yikes!

Corset and Regency sewing...

I finally have the Baroque Corset completely boned and sewn together, and I have the decorative ribbon sewn down the front seams. This is really to hide where the pieces were attached. I found JUST ENOUGH vintage blue silk velvet ribbon for this. I have all the binging cut and sewn together but just haven't been able to bring myself to sew it on the darn thing. Maybe tomorrow...

The last few days I have been working on pieces for a Regency Tea that I am attending on September 20th, with my daughter. So far I have made her a bonnet and a ruticle. I really like the later, and the hat is ok. I wish I had made it fuller in the back as I just don't think it is as poufy as it should be. I will fix it later if I have time, but it will work for now and overall it is very attractive.

For myself I have cut the dress and jacket. The dress is something of an experiment in the lacing department as I have it lacing/closing in the front. We will see how it turns out. I did not cut the sleeves large enough and I was not liking how they fit so I decided to make it more of a jumper style. I think this will look nice. The only fabric I have for a blouse though that I really like is probably not very period, and it IS synthetic, but I really like the look so I am using it anyway. I will make another more appropriate blouse for it later when I can find the right material.

I must fix it, its BAROQUE...

Yeah I know, bad joke. I am going to parlay my very much unfinished Baroque corset into the #16 challenge somehow. I will have to look through the terminology later, as right now I need to be sewing. There is a lot of it left to do (especially since a piece went missing and had to be recut/boned), and I am not completely sold on the actual shape of it. I am worried that the straps may end up being a bit too wide, and possibly the back too high. I will need to do a fitting and then decide, which would have been MUCH easier had I made it close in the front AND back, but I didn't want to hassle with re-working the boning placement. That was probably a mistake.

Work continues on Baroque corset...

Picked up the weed trimmer line to bone the corset. Not yet sure how I am going to finish the tips of the "bone" yet, so right now just cutting them to length and inserting them to see what I think. So far am liking it but think I should have gotten one size smaller of the line. Only reason I didn't was it was a much smaller package.

Early start to the New Year...

I actually made an early start on my New Years resolutions (which I usually never keep) and started working on some of the costume pieces I will be needing for the next year. Some things are working out well others not. Here is run down so far...

1: My first attempt was with the Elizabethan corset and chemise. They have been cut out for over a year, waiting for me to do something with them. I got all the pieces out and got them pinned to their linings then started on the MANY boning channels. After sewing for a while I noticed that there was a stain/discoloration on the front center piece. Not sure how this could have happened since it has been put away but I will have to soak the piece and see if I can get it out before continuing. I have no more of the fabric so I am hoping it will wash out. Not sure if JoAnn's sells it anymore or not.

2: Next I moved on to the Elizabethan chemise. I have had this fabric for YEARS-it is lovely printed Voille. I saved it for the perfect thing and now, again, I see there are some spots on it. One being a blue marker? I am pretty sure my daughter is somehow involved in that one, so I will have to see if I can wash this out too.

3: After looking at a lot of different patterns for stays and reading reviews I decided to make a pair out of the Simplicity 3635 pattern. I had two others I toyed with using, one from Reconstructing History and the other was the Butterick pattern with the 4 corsets. I really do like the Butterick but want to try a new way of boning a corset (well new for me) using weed-trimmer line instead of metal or reed, and I thought the Simplicity looked like it would work better for that purpose. I found a nice vintage heavy cotton sateen fabric that was used for curtains and has a manufacture date of 1978 stamped on the side in my fabric stash and used that for the outer and lining layer, using a stiff broadcloth I had on hand for the interfacing. I have all of it cut out and all the boning channels sewn, just waiting to pick up the boning material and binding next week.

4: Since I have to wait to finish the corset I decided to cut out a dress. I have a stash of beautiful linen cotton blend that was $15 a yard that I bought for $4 TOTAL from a garage sale many years back. I had intended on making a Baroque era riding jacket and skirt out of it but having been looking at so many Regency fashion plates lately I thought it would make a lovely day dress too. Luckily, as I was unfolding it I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had way more material than I thought! So if nothing else I can get the Regency day dress and the Baroque jacket out of it, if not the skirt. I really love the fabric, it has a high linen content and seems to look gray one minute and a purple color the next. I used a pattern I have never used as I wanted a quick sew, and it turned out to be more trouble that it was worth. I spent several extra hours fiddling with it to get it to work, so now I need to make button holes and put on the buttons, once I find some. Here is a picture of the fabric taken with my phone, didn't come out very well unfortunately. Will post more details about each of these projects soon :)