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!