revisiting short stays

I have been getting new clients this year, which has been lovely, but will have to take a bit of a break from sewing for other people for a while in order to get caught up on my PhD work. When the whiteboard fills up, I get anxious, because I have given people my word that I would sew for them, and want to keep that word.

So, the last few weeks I have been working on stays, predominantly for a new client, but also for myself. They are a compare and contrast in both cut and fashion, but also class levels. The ones for the client are a regency era historical cut, but covered in fine lace, and so are very delicate. The ones for me are revolutionary period, working class and serviceable. A tale in two class levels for sure!

Making new stays for a new body means trial and error, fixing and tweaking until I am happy with the cut. I hope to have them bound off this week for what will hopefully be the final fitting next week. Then I can drape a bodice for them and get the gown under construction. I also have a shift to make, and a Banyan for their spouse. They are excited to have someone make new clothes for them, and it is infectious, their excitement. If I could afford to hire someone right now, we would be seriously hard at it. But I am just one woman, and so things will get made in due time.

Some in-progress shots of the stays. I will be binding them off again today, after taking them entirely apart to tweak the side pieces. I also stabilized the edge of the lace along the centre back a bit more with some gold thread couched down over the scallop edge. The lace is made up of short pieces of gold thread over the netting, and very fragile. By couching a continuous length of more gold thread on top, those shorter lengths will be held more firmly in place. These stays will never be seen by anyone other than the client and their spouse, and so we can have a bit more fun with their femininity, and make a garment they will feel good wearing. I have to admit, they are really lovely to look at, but they took about all the patience I could find, lots of tiny hand stitches with a tiny needle and silk thread. Most people would have just said, "it can't be done", but I love a challenge.

My own stays, in comparison, are rough and tumble. I am tweaking my own stays pattern again with this set, having taken a large fish out of the seam between the front and side front pieces.

Like my very first set of stays made over 25 years ago now, these will also be green linen with brown stitching. Unlike that first set though, these ones are made from layers of linen and linen canvas, and synthetic whalebone, not the cotton canvas and steel boning from that first set. I also understand the stays making process a whole lot more, and so can fix fit issues I had with the last set (taking out that fish). These ones are going to be mostly machine made, as I have found my backstitch really closely resembles machine, I have a nice machine 'backstitch' and I would like to have these finished before the beginning of the season in May...with all that work on my white board, remember? And a research trip to Nova Scotia in April.

All the bone channels are now in, and last night while watching TV, I started on the great many eyelets I have to do. These will be both front and back lacing, so I can dress (and more importantly undress) myself. The eyelets down the back sections are finished now, the front eyelets will get worked tonight. Then, before too long, I will sew the pieces together, have a quick fitting, and be able to bind these off while I am away. The binding will be done by hand, and I am not sure yet what I want to bind them with, but linen tape is the frontrunner at the moment.

Once I get back from Nova Scotia, I have to get gaiters and a black silk neck stock made up for Pierre before opening weekend. We decided against the expense of the forage cap workshop at the moment, due in large part to me having to fund that trip. He will likely wear his monmouth cap for the weekend. If I can, I'd like to get a brown wool jacket made for him for that weekend as well, as that would have been his dress of the day as a servant over a regimental jacket. While he is smol, his shoulders are still too wide for the servants jacket that the Fort has in stock, and it would be good for him to have his own, so he can feel comfortable getting it all kinds of heritage'd.

After opening weekend, PhD stuff happens in earnest! I have a wardrobe inventory to reproduce, tweaks to make on Pierre's retired highland soldier's clothes, and my Shelburne Loyalists suits to make.

little sketch in the Ross-Thompson House museum

I also have a Regimental for Tommy, stays for Lynn on the whiteboard and any other reproductions I want to make based on my research trip. I have also been researching what the Waldeckers might have been wearing after the war, and wondering about cultural differences there.

I have a busy year ahead of me, stay tuned to watch what's new in the shoe...