Stays, Round 2

My HSO (hideous sewn object). The second mock up, lacing panels cannibalized from December’s failed attempt at drafting

After my failed attempt at drafting a stays pattern (in the last post), I was directed to a maker on Etsy whose shop is called Clockwork Faerie. I knew I’d seen her shop before, the pattern was very reasonably priced, and a couple different people on Reddit recommended it, so I bought it immediately. And BOY am I glad I did! The fitting guide alone would have been worth the cost for me, but the whole pattern is so clear and well explained. And the creator is really nice too!

So with this pattern in hand, I shortened it slightly and made a single layer mock up which actually fit pretty well! It was actually too small which was kind of a nice problem to have for a change!

The proportions seemed like they would work, so I went up a size, shortened again, and made the next mock up. Still a single layer of fabric, but I attached the lacing panels that I took off the first set of failed stays (RIP) and borrowed a trick I saw somewhere to attach the bones using masking tape. The only tape I had was blue painter’s tape so…

The result was one of the most hideous sewn objects I have ever created, but damn if it didn’t work like a charm.

Yeah, I was lazy and just traced the boning channels the same on both sides and sewed one side together inside out. It’s riding a little high in this picture but it does actually sit where it’s supposed to.

Fitting this one went MUCH smoother than the last attempt and I am cautiously optimistic that the next fitting of these will be the last before I can make the real deal.

That would be great, because there’s a lot more to get done. The project has sort of ballooned from one dress to a whole slew of costume pieces including the dress. To be totally clear, there’s no pressure from my friend to do ANY of this, let along add more things, so it’s all my own fault if this becomes too big of a project! But I do want to do it and at least for now am still really enjoying the process. It’s fun to be dabbling in costumes which involve not only normal sewing but also some creative problem solving for performance purposes. And it’s extra fun to be doing all of this with the luxury of a lot of time for trial and error since that’s not something that can be taken for granted when making costumes.

One of the simpler costumes is very close to fully done which will feel like a nice victory. And meanwhile a completely different stays pattern is well on its way to becoming a boned bodice! The stays from this post are now destined to be the base of an otherwise pretty simple peasant girl costume which should come together quickly once the stays are done. On to the next things!

UPDATE: Since I wrote this post, we had the next fitting and the stays FIT!! OMG I am so happy! No changes needed, ready to make the real thing!

Assistant April inspects the bag used to transport materials to assure quality control

Stays, Round 1

Baby’s first grommets last spring when I finally finished a corset I had started in 2023

For 18th century dress (ok any historical dress), the foundation garments really are the foundation. You can’t get the look or feel right without them. And you can’t get anything else fitted properly without them. So the first part of the big "costume-for-friend” project has been working on stays.

I have my own lovely Redthreaded 1750s stays, and have made their 1780s pattern for myself as well (ok, ok, I never finished them because binding…). I also made a 19th century corset for myself. So I generally know what I’m doing in theory. The part of this where I DON’T know what I’m doing is fitting, because I’m lucky enough that the only pattern adjustment I’ve needed to do for myself has been to shorten things. And because my friend is very petite, there is a lot of fitting that needs to be done to most pre-existing patterns.

I started from the Redthreaded 1780s pattern. The dance my friend is working with most of the time is a bit earlier, from the beginning of the century up through the 1760s, but it’s important that she can get in and out of her costume by herself if she needs to so front lacing seemed like the way to go and I knew it was a reliable pattern since I’d used it before. The problem was that the smallest size in their patterns is still a little too big and most of the advice I was finding for how to alter stays and corset patterns helpfully tells you to just go down a size if the waist measurement is the problem.

Don’t worry, I said to myself! You are smart and understand the basics of pattern drafting, and there are a bunch of lovely people teaching things on the internet! (Shout out to YouTube University where I learned most everything I know about sewing, and in this case in particular to Mariah Pattie and French Meadows for their videos on arc drafting stays). So I set about drafting the pattern to my friend’s measurements. The first fitting of the unboned toile went SHOCKINGLY well and I was extremely proud of myself!

This is the only photo I took. Believe me, it was worse around the back.

Because the first test had gone so well, the adjustments I had to make were minimal and involved slightly changing the neckline, lowering the top of the back, and adding a small amount to the back lacing gap. So I made them and went right on to the next mock up, with bones and a test run to practice grommeting which I’d only done once before for a corset I’d made.

Reader, 40 hand-set grommets later, the second fitting was a demoralizing disaster.

I still believe in my heart of hearts that I was on the right track with this. I think what happened was a combination of a bad measurement and not being experienced enough to catch it early. But I couldn’t quite face the process of what felt like completely starting over, especially since I wasn’t confident enough in my drafting to be sure it wouldn’t just happen the second time too. And I knew at the time I didn’t have the knowledge I needed to troubleshoot these kinds of fit problems.

So I did what any other geriatric millennial would do in this circumstance: I asked Reddit. Specifically about recommendations either for resources for learning how to make these kinds of alterations to stays, or for patterns that would give me a closer starting point. And some beautiful humans in r/HistoricalCostuming pointed me toward a different pattern to try out, one that not only had extended sizes (in both directions!), but also came with a stunningly clear and helpful fitting guide AND was created by a lovely maker on Etsy. STAY tuned!

(Sorry, I’ll see myself out…)

Embodied History

Cello, left, wears a stylish straw hat while Gamba, right, sports the most fashionable tricorn

When I’m not sewing, I’m a musician. Specifically, I play baroque cello and viola da gamba, so I’m a specialist in historical performance. That means I play on instruments that are as close to their original versions as possible, and aim to play the music in ways it might have been played when it was first heard. It’s the intersection of music and history in a very tangible way and it’s a lot of fun!

Sometimes, if people haven’t heard of historical performance before they might ask me “is that like at a renaissance fair where you dress up as a pirate or something.” And the answer is….no. But also kind of yes? Because while there’s some truth to older stereotypes of historical performance happening in questionable costumes, there’s also a lot (and I mean A LOT) that we can learn from exploring not only the sounds but also the clothing of the past.

Yours truly in a not-too-tight-to-play-instruments-in dress

For example, we often hear that women in the 18th century didn’t play the violin because they “couldn’t lift their arms because of the way their dresses were cut.”

Well, guess what. It turns out that how you place your armscye (that’s the opening where the sleeve attaches) makes a BIG difference to your shoulder mobility while wearing a garment. 18th century armscyes were set closer to the body than modern styles, which means that even though they fit tighter than many of us are used to, the range of motion is only really restricted if you try to lift your arms over your head.

And guess what else! Playing the violin in the 18th century did not involve lifting your arms over your head! (It doesn’t really now either but I guess modern musicians do tend to flail dramatically from time to time?) It’s true that women in the 18th century tended not to play violin. But some did, and those that didn’t weren’t opting out because their dresses were too tight.

Just like there are those of us who are interested in how music can be embodied history, there are also those of us studying historical dance. As you might imagine, having the proper garments (and for women’s dress, especially having the right UNDERgarments) can have a huge impact on how a dancer uses their body.

I’ll be the first to tell you I’m not a great dancer, but I enjoyed learning a lot about historical dance during my time at Case Western where we worked with Julie Andrijeski who is both a violinist and a dancer. It wasn’t until I’d been learning for nearly 2 years that I was first able to try doing it with stays on. And let me tell you, even for someone who had experience wearing them before, dancing in them was a revelation. If you’ve ever worn a dress that had boning in it or even a particularly snug waistcoat, you’ll have some idea of how even gentle shaping from a garment can dramatically change the way you use your body.

I have a good friend who is a beautiful dancer as well as being a violinist and she will be completing her DMA this spring. She’s doing her lecture recital on a dance topic and will be dancing extensively for that. While there are some costumes available at the school for her to use, because she is quite petite, most of them just don’t fit her. So to scratch my historical costuming itch and help her out, we’re working on a bunch of costume pieces for her that she’ll use for a couple of performances in May (and hopefully in the future as well!)

My first day of work at Colonial Williamsburg was surreal in the best possible way

It’s a big undertaking, involving a lot of techniques I don’t have much experience with, but I’m up for the challenge and I’m learning a lot in the process! And a lot of that learning has come from amazing people who have shared their own experiences online. So I decided to have a go at documenting the process here because honestly writing a blog post suits me much better than only trying to condense all of this down into social media posts. I hope you’ll enjoy following along and that you’ll let me know if you’re here so I can tell if I’m talking to myself or not!