Hello, once again!
I am still stitching away at the embroidery on the surcote, and in the meantime have finished another petticoat and am now beginning my first tippy-toe steps into stay making. I've found the process rather delightful, so far. I'm using the Simplicity pattern 8162.
Right from the get-go I realized that I'd gotten the wrong pattern when I was looking over the fabric requirements and saw that despite the pattern being for up to a size 14, they meant a much smaller size 14 than me! According to this pattern, a person with my measurements is a size 22. First of all, ouch. Second of all, how?? I decided to make the size 14 pattern and just see if it would work out, since stays are meant to squish you into place a bit. Perhaps foolhardy, but I was excited to practice.
So with a nice yellow cotton, I got to work on pinning and cutting out the pieces for the size 14 pattern. At first I was a bit taken aback since the directions said to cut out two of each side, and that would either mean that you would only have one half of the pair, or you would have no way to make the boning channels in between layers. Then I realized that they intended me to cut out another layer of interlining, which I don't have any of, so for the purpose of this mockup I decided to just cut out another set of the same yellow cotton.
First, to test my ability to get the pattern put together at all on this my first adventure with anything this difficult and fiddly, I decided to try and get the one half all done and to see if it would even fit my body or if I really would need to go the size up. To my slight amazement, the cut out pattern DID fit my body! Perhaps my decision wasn't so foolhardy after all!
I went ahead and put in all the boning channels that the pattern directed, using a graphite pencil and straight edge to mark where the channels should go. Then I stitched them up and measured out the bones and put them into the channels, and ironed the boned stay to make the plastic boning lie flat.
It was at this point that I realized, looking at the pattern a couple steps later, that their image of the stays had very little space in between the bones, while mine had great big gaps! Their stays also had wider seams where I had all the space. Doh! The pattern intended for there to be wider seams so the bones would be snug up against each other. If I went back and made the adjustment to create those wider seams and snug fit, the stays would be as supportive as they should be, but it wouldn't fit me anymore.
I decided to add in some more boning channels in the spaces where there were wide enough gaps alongside the other bones. Hopefully, this would be more supportive and at the same time not require that I purchase a whole new pattern and wait for it to arrive in the post. It was around this time that I realized that the boning that I had would not be enough to complete the project, especially with added boning channels. A friend gave me some heavy duty zip ties, which work just fine, and are actually more supportive than the bones I had initially!
After repeating the work for the second half of the bodice, I sewed the two back panels together. I hate eyelets, and want to do as few of them as possible, which means no back lacing. Once the two inner layer pieces were sewn together, I went ahead and cut out the top layer. I realized that most stays don't really have a nice top covering layer, and that this might be more accurately categorized as a bodice, although the pattern is for stays.
The blue fabric does have a bit of stretch to it, which is not historically accurate or ideal, but was already in my stash and was the right amount of fabric, so...oh well! I initially cut out much to much ease on the top and bottom of all the pieces, since I'm not using bias tape to bind anything, I'm just rolling the hem over and tacking it down. I had to trim off significant amounts of fabric as I went to make the edges narrow enough to accomplish the binding without being way too bulky. I did have some trouble down at the edges of the tabs, as the fabric did not want to curve and my attempts at notches were a little rough around the edges.
After several evenings of tacking down the top layer, I finally had a complete, finished piece. The stitches are visible, but as neat as I could make them. I just used a whip stitch to tack it down all around the edge. I realized about half way through, once I'd already tacked down the whole section, that I had one too few bones on one side of the back panel, and that I hadn't sealed off a couple boning channels. I had to go back and seal them off by hand, and I just accepted that there weren't going to be as many bones on one side. Not ideal, but as my first attempt, I'm willing to be lenient with mistakes. It's a learning curve, you know?
Now for the closure. I initially tried to make hooks and eyes work, but as there is no bone in the edge of the bodice to support, the fabric just stretched and gapped. Too much pressure was placed on the tacked edge, and I knew the hook and eyes wouldn't work they way I wanted them to. I resigned myself to eyelets. Now, I had had trouble with creating the holes for eyelets. I've misplaced my awl, and while I had an appropriately sized knitting needle for stretching the hole, I knew I still needed to make a few cuts in all three layers of fabric to make the eyelet holes. I was planning on hand binding them, so I knew I needed to be careful. Nonetheless I still managed to rip a centimeter long gash where I wanted to put an eyelet. Messy, messy. I bound it up, but figured out that if you take a bite out of the fabric with the seam ripper, instead of just trying to force it through, you got neater results. Hopefully writing this down will help me remember that.
I won't show the details of my eyelets because they are better left a mystery, so you don't know how bad they are, but here's the finished product! I'm quite proud of how it came out, although there are several things I would fix if I were doing it over. It's very supportive and snug, and I'm so happy to have a bodice of my own making! Next on the list is a bumroll and jacket.
I am still stitching away at the embroidery on the surcote, and in the meantime have finished another petticoat and am now beginning my first tippy-toe steps into stay making. I've found the process rather delightful, so far. I'm using the Simplicity pattern 8162.
Right from the get-go I realized that I'd gotten the wrong pattern when I was looking over the fabric requirements and saw that despite the pattern being for up to a size 14, they meant a much smaller size 14 than me! According to this pattern, a person with my measurements is a size 22. First of all, ouch. Second of all, how?? I decided to make the size 14 pattern and just see if it would work out, since stays are meant to squish you into place a bit. Perhaps foolhardy, but I was excited to practice.
So with a nice yellow cotton, I got to work on pinning and cutting out the pieces for the size 14 pattern. At first I was a bit taken aback since the directions said to cut out two of each side, and that would either mean that you would only have one half of the pair, or you would have no way to make the boning channels in between layers. Then I realized that they intended me to cut out another layer of interlining, which I don't have any of, so for the purpose of this mockup I decided to just cut out another set of the same yellow cotton.
First, to test my ability to get the pattern put together at all on this my first adventure with anything this difficult and fiddly, I decided to try and get the one half all done and to see if it would even fit my body or if I really would need to go the size up. To my slight amazement, the cut out pattern DID fit my body! Perhaps my decision wasn't so foolhardy after all!
It was at this point that I realized, looking at the pattern a couple steps later, that their image of the stays had very little space in between the bones, while mine had great big gaps! Their stays also had wider seams where I had all the space. Doh! The pattern intended for there to be wider seams so the bones would be snug up against each other. If I went back and made the adjustment to create those wider seams and snug fit, the stays would be as supportive as they should be, but it wouldn't fit me anymore.
I decided to add in some more boning channels in the spaces where there were wide enough gaps alongside the other bones. Hopefully, this would be more supportive and at the same time not require that I purchase a whole new pattern and wait for it to arrive in the post. It was around this time that I realized that the boning that I had would not be enough to complete the project, especially with added boning channels. A friend gave me some heavy duty zip ties, which work just fine, and are actually more supportive than the bones I had initially!
After repeating the work for the second half of the bodice, I sewed the two back panels together. I hate eyelets, and want to do as few of them as possible, which means no back lacing. Once the two inner layer pieces were sewn together, I went ahead and cut out the top layer. I realized that most stays don't really have a nice top covering layer, and that this might be more accurately categorized as a bodice, although the pattern is for stays.
The blue fabric does have a bit of stretch to it, which is not historically accurate or ideal, but was already in my stash and was the right amount of fabric, so...oh well! I initially cut out much to much ease on the top and bottom of all the pieces, since I'm not using bias tape to bind anything, I'm just rolling the hem over and tacking it down. I had to trim off significant amounts of fabric as I went to make the edges narrow enough to accomplish the binding without being way too bulky. I did have some trouble down at the edges of the tabs, as the fabric did not want to curve and my attempts at notches were a little rough around the edges.
After several evenings of tacking down the top layer, I finally had a complete, finished piece. The stitches are visible, but as neat as I could make them. I just used a whip stitch to tack it down all around the edge. I realized about half way through, once I'd already tacked down the whole section, that I had one too few bones on one side of the back panel, and that I hadn't sealed off a couple boning channels. I had to go back and seal them off by hand, and I just accepted that there weren't going to be as many bones on one side. Not ideal, but as my first attempt, I'm willing to be lenient with mistakes. It's a learning curve, you know?
Now for the closure. I initially tried to make hooks and eyes work, but as there is no bone in the edge of the bodice to support, the fabric just stretched and gapped. Too much pressure was placed on the tacked edge, and I knew the hook and eyes wouldn't work they way I wanted them to. I resigned myself to eyelets. Now, I had had trouble with creating the holes for eyelets. I've misplaced my awl, and while I had an appropriately sized knitting needle for stretching the hole, I knew I still needed to make a few cuts in all three layers of fabric to make the eyelet holes. I was planning on hand binding them, so I knew I needed to be careful. Nonetheless I still managed to rip a centimeter long gash where I wanted to put an eyelet. Messy, messy. I bound it up, but figured out that if you take a bite out of the fabric with the seam ripper, instead of just trying to force it through, you got neater results. Hopefully writing this down will help me remember that.
I won't show the details of my eyelets because they are better left a mystery, so you don't know how bad they are, but here's the finished product! I'm quite proud of how it came out, although there are several things I would fix if I were doing it over. It's very supportive and snug, and I'm so happy to have a bodice of my own making! Next on the list is a bumroll and jacket.
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