The Construction of Stays for the Common Woman

Stays are one of those necessary evils of living history for women. We all have a love hate relationship with them because while we love the look, getting new ones is a painful process...more-so than bra shopping. For many people, buying custom made ones is simply out of the snack bracket, and shopping at our friendly Walmart of living history supplies leaves us with stays that do not live up to any ideals we may hold.

So what is a woman to do?

Well, we end up making our own. We go to workshops, we buy patterns, we suffer through the process. And often times, we are not at all happy with the result.

I've been a teacher of said workshops, and trust me, it's as frustrating for me, as it is for you. I would love to sit and make stays for everyone, but I need to eat and pay rent, and they are a giant time suck, so I can't offer to do it for free. What I can do though, is blog about my own process of making stays, this time, trying out a Butterick pattern. A pattern so common that anyone can just nip off to their local fabric store and buy a copy.

This one...

I started this project by tracing off all the pattern pieces, removing the seam allowances as I did. I also marked all pertinent sewing points, like the waistline balance points, the little squares, grainlines, everything.

I didn't worry about the shoulder strap at the moment, because I knew I'd need to make my own based on how the stays sit on my fit model, the lovely Alison Bowie.

For this project, I was going to be doing things on the cheap. We need to get her dressed for an event in September, and we are both students. Neither of us can afford to be out buying supplies. The fashion layer was scraps of red/white linen, the body of the stays would be two layers of unwashed factory cotton. I planned to use my trusty go-to for boning, nylon zip-ties from Lee Valley. I'd figure out binding later, but probably also something from the stash. There would be no coutil, no linen canvas, no worsted wool loveliness, no buff deerskin binding...did I mention this needed to be done on the cheap? Anyway, who else is going to see them once she is dressed and at the event?

Now, I'm a huge fan of sampling, and getting things done in an efficient manner for folks. I've had quite a few years working in museums with no budgets. I needed to know if my machine could produce a look close enough to hand stitching those bone channels in...and it could.

I went with #19 stitch on my machine. I did a hand stitched back stitch with some buttonhole twist next to it, after I snapped this photo, and I was happy with the results. Honestly, my hand stitching is so damned even, that unless you are looking too damned close, you can't tell the difference. And, we needed to get this done! Save the hand stitching for where it really counts.

First things first, tracing the pattern pieces on to the cotton, and then basting all the layers together so they don't move around.

I use a diagonal baste, and baste by hand...yes, do this step too, trust me, it will make your life a whole lot easier. Also, those grainlines aren't there to make the pattern drafter look good, they are their for a purpose. Respect them! The front and back edges NEED to be on the straight, the side panel NEEDS to be cut on the bias to fit around your body. You are not a flat sheet of plywood, you have curves.

I marked a rough guide for sewing my boning channels in and stitched with the cotton side up. I started by sewing the front edge channels, then worked my way down from the top edge. I used the half width of my presser foot as a guide for how wide to make my channels, not the lines drawn. Those were just a rough guide. I know that the half width of my presser foot gives a nice, tight boning channel.

At this point, I realized I would need to stitch in the boning as I went, and so switched to my zipper foot, slowed the machine speed down to turtle, and put my safety glasses on. *if you stitch through a bone at any point, stop. Change the needle, and slow the hell down. The needle is likely bent now, which is why you need to change it...even if it doesn't look like it. A bent needle will mess up your machine, just don't. Needles are cheap.

Once all the bone channels were stitched in, and the boning inserted into the channels, I was good to start sewing the pieces together. I knew at this point that switching to hand sewing was my best option for total control. The bulk of the work was done now though, and I saved a couple weeks work of stitching time. Sewing the boning channels by machine took me a day, sewing my last set of stays by hand took well over a month of daily, hard-core stitching.

So stitching the pieces together, it is really important to match up your waistline points perfectly! otherwise you will get a crooked corset, which happened to me in school, and it will just not work on the body. I think that might be the most important point to match up anywhere on a set of stays.

To stitch, I used heavy duty buttonhole twist weight thread, and stab stitched the seam in a running stitch, I then went back down the same seam, stabbing through the same holes as the first running stitch to lock those stitches together. The final result should look like a machine made stitch line of solid stitching...or as close as you can.

I pressed all my seam allowances open, and left it on the ironing board to contemplate it's 'stay'ness for a day or so as I waited for a fitting.

The morning of the fitting, I looked at the stays and thought, "Kelly, you didn't measure those pieces very well...that looks like too sharp an angle for Alison's body."

See, the thing is, modern bodies are not fit mannikins, certainly not the fit mannikins used in the pattern making industry. And honestly, this pattern appears to be taken straight out of Diderot's encyclopaedia. It WILL NOT FIT the modern body. That's ok though, we know how to alter to make fit. I was also concerned at this point, how high the back was sitting, based on the waistline balance marks.

See what is going on with the armscye? It's sitting too low.

And here is where I slashed the side back seam to add a piece of factory cotton to help measure the spread I would need at Alison's waist. You can also see my quick and dirty fitting style. Not all fittings happen the way you see them on 'Say Yes to the Dress'. Cutters get shit done, I knew what I needed to do before the fitting, and used what I needed to get the job done. The piece of cotton is on the straight, so that it will not stretch, but gives me enough time to get the says off Alison again, and measure the distance of the spread.

Then I moved back to paper. I took the original pattern piece, the top photo, and cut from the bottom, just to the top edge point, along that straight line. Leaving the tiniest bit left connected to act as a fulcrum. The bottom photo shows me spreading the bottom of the piece apart, that distance I measured from the fitting. The ruler shows the grainline that I chose, based off the original grainline from the pattern. The other half of the grainline might have been too much on the cross grain to provide enough stretch to ease around the body. I then traced off a new pattern piece in paper.

*I always cut from paper patterns, even when I drape something. If you solely rely on the fabric, that fabric may have stretched out over time, being stashed away in a box, pushed around and such. As soon as I am done a draping, I make a hard paper copy, with all the markings. I also do this after fittings. I then label the pattern piece with the person's name, and the date of the fitting. Life alters the body, and so having a date on the pattern tells me how out of touch with the current body I'm trying to fit might be.

At this point, I recut two new side pieces, from the 'just enough' scrap I had left of the fashion fabric. I then stitched new boning channels, and stitched the pieces in place...this time though, changing how I would stitch the back panel on.

The back panel, as the Butterick cutter wanted me to stitch it on.

The new, better position.

See how the back panel was adjusted. The back really was too high, if I matched the waistline points the way the cutter wanted me to sew the pieces together. This would have resulted in a shifted or crooked corset. The armscye would have been too low in the back, the back neckline too high, and the compression wrong at the back waist. I literally repositioned the piece lower so that the waistline curved better and the bottom of the stays were in a nice curve from the hipline curve. I marked my new balance points, and crossed out the old ones. This is where I stab stitched the pieces together.

A much better shape for Alison's athletic body. She is a swimmer, weight trains, and was a former highland dancer. Her body is a bit rectangular. Most of us are a bit rectangular. We will NOT fit this pattern as cut, because we have not been waist training since two years of age. We have expanded ribcages, and thicker waistlines than an eighteenth-century woman. ALL commercial patterns need to be adjusted to fit the body we are working with.

So finishing...

I had some mint green tailors tape that one of my friends threw in a dye pot for me once. Tailors tape is straight woven, not twill woven. The cotton tape is also quite thin. I used this to cover my seams. I also added a further 'seamline' with tape going in a similar layout to the side front seam tape, about half way between the two tape lines to give the appearance of another seam. This extra line will fool the eye into thinking it can see more shaping happening.

I then bound the stays in another scrap of linen, also green, that had already been made up into bias tape.

In period, they would not have wasted cloth by making into bias tape, but would have cut straight grain strips, or even used deer-hide to bind the stays. I know how to make bias tape without wasting fabric, and like to bind seam allowances and such, using the Hong Kong method of seam finishing, so I often have scraps of it that I make up from leftover scrap fabric. So yes, this was kicking around the stash from another project.

When binding, I take the time to press my seam allowances under a quarter inch on both edges. Pressing first means that you can then stitch the finished edge to the garment with slip stitches, giving you a really nice finish. I bind stays by hand, because I encase the ends of the boning in the binding, giving me a nice firm edge to the top and bottom of the stays. I start on the fashion side of the stays, then pull the binding to the inside of the garment, ensuring I have a nice, even edge on the front. Who cares what the insides look like! I also stitch from right, towards the left, just like the needle, as I am right handed. My needle is tiny, only about an inch long, the thread is waxed silk, but you can use any kind of fine thread for this. Waxing helps to prevent it from snarling. And I use a thimble...

These will be left unlined, as many were in the period. With just whip stitching over the cut edges of the seams allowances. Linings would have been placed in after binding anyway, so they could be easily replaced as they wore out. So, if Alison wants, we can line these later...right now, we need to get her gown started.

These stays took me 36 hours of sewing time. As such, by machine, I would have to charge a client 720$ plus materials. I know enough about cutting that I will use this pattern again, since, for most people, it's a good jumping off point. It will need to be altered to fit each, individual body. But will save a crap tonne of time drafting from scratch. I think most home sewers could tackle this project on their own though, with a little help from friends. I will likely teach from this pattern in the future.

These stays are not historically accurate, but plausible. I used all natural fabrics so that her body can breath. The colour choices may not be entirely accurate, but again, cheap, from stash, actually the scrap box. I want to get Alison kitted out so we can have fun together. And like I often say,

If you are looking that closely at her underwear, you'd best be buying her dinner first!

Genetically Mohawk, Culturally French: the Case For and Against an Indigenous Living History Persona

When doing living history, one walks a fine line when creating a new persona for interpretive programing. Many hours of research go into creating a character, sometimes based on one famous person from history, many times they are a composite of characters made up of the lives of lesser known individuals that together offer enough information from the period in order to understand how a person may have lived. You constantly question your and possibly the institution’s motives for offering the interpretation program, hoping that you don’t cross the line into uncomfortable territory, for either you as the animator, or the public.

Such is the case when creating indigenous characters for interpretive programming. Much the same way ‘black face’ is found offensive, and rightfully so, ‘red face’ is equally offensive. The problem lies not in making up ones face to be a race they are not, but in the lives lived by the animators. Everyone within the field would love to see a more multicultural aspect to the programming we offer.  Indigenous peoples played a large role in certain aspects of the American Revolution, certainly in what is now New York State. Not many Indigenous people are called to the field of living history though, due to the simple fact that for them, their struggles are not ‘history’, rather they are still very much current affairs. And so the problem lies more in the offensive offerings of ‘middle aged white-dudes’ playing at ‘Indian’.

In the spring of 2016, my husband and I attended a conference on the Revolution in the Mohawk Valley in New York State. It was an excellent opportunity for my husband to connect with his family’s history, as much of Bourgogne’s campaign crossed lands that were inhabited by his ancestors, from Forts Chambly and Saint John, and down the Champlain valley. During the conference, a fellow living historian took the stage in full eighteenth-century Haudenosaunee attire. Darren Bonaparte’s lecture was his living history program. Drawn from stories of his ‘grandfathers’, he spoke about the many wampum belts that were exchanged during the revolutionary period. He showed the audience several reproductions of these belts, and explained the meaning behind the symbolism contained in the imagery. He also spoke about how they were created originally, as well as his own reproductions. He also spoke about the clothing he was wearing, how the European elements were added to his traditional clothing items and why. My husband was gobsmacked, he was so impressed. We learned this man was an iron worker from Ahkwesasne.

My husband’s family is from Kahnawa:ke, but he grew up in LaSalle on the island of Montreal. His grandfather removed the family from the reservation before Pierre’s dad was born. That aspect of his history was never spoken about, in fact, it was not until his father’s death that I learned that Pierre was ‘that close’ to indigenous heritage. Not that it would have made any difference in how I feel about him, it was more of an interesting ‘shock’ when his cousins came into the church wearing the cultural markers of modern indigenous women. It made sense to me how both Pierre and his dad could become so brown from the sun in the summer, they are brown men. His aunts, being much older than his dad, were already adults when the family moved off-reserve, and so made their own decisions about where they would live.  His dad’s family is not exactly close, and so this was my first meeting of his dad’s older sisters and cousins. They remained culturally Mohawk, Pierre’s dad, and in turn, Pierre and his siblings were raised to be culturally French.

On the way home from that Spring conference, we discussed the man from Ahkwesasne and his living history program. While it would be lovely to see more indigenous peoples in living history programs, it is not something that Pierre would feel comfortable doing. Not exactly a ‘middle aged white-dude’, culturally he is one.  He has not lived the life of an indigenous man, he does not intimately understand the struggles that continue to face Indigenous people. That part of his history has been lost. He is culturally French. Pierre may never feel comfortable enough to portray a fully indigenous man, but now, his interpretive character includes that cross-over in his heritage, and at Fort Ticonderoga in the summer of 2016, he was able to offer a crossover perspective to the interpretive program.

History is a difficult subject at times. Cultural trauma is a subject that must be addressed carefully. In many instances, it has shaped who we are as modern people. In the instance of indigenous heritage, colonialism is very much a current issue. As long as people are forced to live on reservations, often in sub-standard living conditions, not able to privately own their own homes, or control things that the rest of us take for granted, like clean drinking water, Canadians are engaged in a colonial project. As historians, we walk a very fine line between anthropologist and colonizer. I believe we should spend a bit more time listening to what those indigenous voices are saying to us before we try to make our own voices heard in the effort to ‘save’ the culture. Who are we saving it from? Who are we saving it for?

This may be an interesting read for anyone interested in de-colonization issues surrounding Canadian Indigenous people,
Michael Asch. (2014). On Being Here to Stay: Treaty and Aboriginal Rights in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 217pp.

Striving for Accuracy: Attempting to do Living History While Surrounded by Pirates, Belly Dancers and Bill Lynch shows

The state of living history in Nova Scotia is dismal. While there are a few people and historic sites that are trying to do quality, accurate interpretation, sadly, they are few and far between. The problem stretches back as far as Brian Mulroney, when he decimated Parks Canada, and laid off all the historians. It may reach further back than that. And it's not just a Parks issue.

In this past year, I have seen museum sites wanting to hire curators, but are only willing to pay them 10$/hour, and give them 20 hours/week...looking for PhD candidates. I have noticed an influx of Jack Sparrow characters showing up where living history events used to happen. And yet other sites lay off, or outright fire anyone who might have a clue how to do actual historical research, in favour of the people in accounting who know how to crunch numbers and make more money for the directors.

It's depressing.

We have the history. We have the natural beauty of our environment. We still have the tourism numbers...but those won't last if we don't stand up for what makes Nova Scotia beautiful. If everywhere you look, tourists are faced with yet another McDonald's, another holiday fairground, another strip mall of the same stores they find at home, those tourists will simply stay home.

And yes, sometimes, it means spending a bit of money to earn money.

I just finished my third comprehensive exam, save for some minor editing, which I will likely have finished Monday. Then I can send it off. It's an interpretation plan for a small museum in nova Scotia, a house museum. Very cool living history could happen there, if the directors and full time staff can open up to the ideas in my paper. It may also make it relevant to the community at large, bringing in folks who usually walk right on by on their way to the closest Tim's.
On a recent visit, close to their opening day, we walked in to find staff dressed in 'historical costume' to give us a tour. Unfortunately, they weren't really in historical costume, rather, they were dressed in pieces of historic garments, over their modern clothes. There were modern coffee cups, and water bottles left out on the table in the historical room. One of them was on her cell phone, and simply left it sitting on the table when they offered to give us a tour.

My first thought was, 'why don't they just wear golf shirts?' The half hearted attempt just showed me that there was a lack of knowledge, and a lack of care.

This spring, I have been fortunate enough to attend some outstanding living history events in the US. OUTSTANDING! Almost all run by young professionals and volunteers. Every minute detail is carefully considered in their clothing and accoutrements. Participants are vetted to ensure a quality product will be provided to the public. And the Public! The sheer numbers of people turning out to watch these events is outstanding as well. At Lexington Mass, there were several thousand spectators lining the Battle road to watch a half hour/45 minutes of interpretation. I was gobsmacked.

Then I asked, why can't we do that in Nova Scotia? We have the history. We just have to care.

We have to care that our historical wardrobes are correct for the period we are interpreting. We have to care that we are wearing all the appropriate pieces for that wardrobe, that they are finished properly, and fit. No safety pins please!
And we have to care a bit more about the venues that we participate in. It's all great fun when the Bill Lynch comes to town, but we don't have to be the side show to the side show. We can find other, more historic venues to pitch our camps in. We can make an offer to the small, struggling house museum to teach their staff what they should be wearing, and how to wear it...hell, some of us can even teach them how to make their own clothes...and maybe grow our numbers in the process.

Minute Man started off as a small event. Carefully vetting participants to ensure quality programming. Fellow living historians offered to run workshops in the winter months to help others up their living history game. This year, the living history people also numbered in the hundreds. Small hundreds, but hundreds nevertheless.

If we don't change our mindset towards living history soon, we will be left behind. We need to dig out those 'best practices' standards for our group, the umbrella organization, and maybe the sites we want to attend, and really look long and hard at our kit. The progressive people are leaving us behind...just like those 1976ers, smoking cigarettes and looking to drink beer and go 'pew, pew' with their buddies for the weekend...you know, those guys you just don't want to invite around anymore. Like your embarrassing, drunk uncle.