In the first post for these stays, I detailed a bit on how exactly I made my pattern and constructed my mock-ups to check the fit. This post is going to be about the first stages of making the final product.
First thing I want to talk about is the materials I used, especially for the beginning of construction.
I am absolutely a thrift shopper - I go straight to the clearance section in Joann's or other craft stores, and I love going to thrift stores or church yard sales looking for fabric remnants. It's one of the best things ever.
For my interfacing, I used ~3yds of cotton buckram at Joann's that was on sale. It was nice and stiff but still very flexible, and it gave the stays the stability I wanted.
For my fashion fabric, I decided to use a grayish-blue cotton sateen king-sized top sheet I found at a thrift store for $3 (if you can find it, it was Sonoma-brand - I think they sell it at Kohls or JCPenny's).
This fabric is gorgeous - probably one of the prettiest blue colors I've seen (the camera doesn't do it justice) - and I after I cut the stays pieces, I still had a ton of it left, so I'm excited to use it in the future. I was inspired by a few pins of blue stays I found on Pinterest. Blue is also a nice color on me. :)
Some of the blue stays pins are here, here, and here.
Once I had all of my fabric together, I started cutting.
I started with cutting the buckram. I decided to use 2 layers of buckram in each panel, for stability purposes. I got this idea from Koshka-the--Cat's tutorial on 1780's stays. The buckram bolt I had was too long to really work with, so I actually cut it in thirds, and then pinned the thirds together to make two layers. Then I traced the pattern. I used the same method from the mock-up, where I traced the pattern and added a 1/2" seam allowance. In total, there were 16 pieces of buckram.
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| Lots of tracing. |
Then, after all the panels were cut, I marked the boning channels by marking the ends of the lines to the edges of the panels and to the seam allowances
Then I used a needle to poke small holes through the paper in the places where the lines don't meet the edges of the panels. The needle was pretty wide - probably a tapestry or upholstery needle - so I could stick the pencil through.
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| Lines and dots everywhere... |
In the above picture, you can see the little dots I marked on the stays panel for the boning channels. This took a lot, lot of time. The hardest part for me was making sure that not only were the holes in the pattern big enough to stick a fabric pencil through, but also that the fabric pencil was actually marking the buckram underneath. I also had to go back and make sure all of the boning channels were still, in fact, 5/16" wide.
After the boning channels were finished, I cut out the fashion fabric (the blue cotton) pieces, and then pinned those pieces - wrong sides together - to the corresponding buckram. The cotton sateen had a side that was more silky and shimmery, and that was the side I wanted to see, so I made that the right side* of the fabric. When I cut the center front and back panels from the fashion fabric, I added around 1.5 inches to the edges where the eyelets would be. This extra fabric would cover the raw edges of the middle layer, and add a little extra fabric to the lacing portion of the panel. Rococo Atelier mentions in her post that this 'will also make sure your lining won't show from underneath'.
Then I started stitching!
I used Cotton Quilting Thread with a natural color (more or less off-white) from Coats and Clark to stitch the channels - I wanted to have the boning channels visible and in a contrasting color. I originally wanted a yellow or gold color, but I went instead with the more natural, and probably more common, color. I stitched all of the channels plus the edges of some of the tabs, specifically the ones that had openings in the tops of the panels - this helped me to seal the channels for the future. It also kept the fabric for the tabs from flapping around and irritating me.
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| I start with the long channels, from the top to bottom, and then sew the smaller channels that intersected. |
I was pretty fortunate that the pieces were relatively symmetrical once cut - no real overhang of extra fabric.
I did machine-stitch the boning channels. I know some people will point out "That's not historically accurate". And you're absolutely right - it's not, and I will be the first to admit that. But I absolutely HATE hand stitching, and I was not going to trust my hand-stitching skills to stitching something that needs to be sturdy and stay together when you tug the ever-living s**t out of it. Besides, the hand stitching comes later, and I needed to reserve all my loathing for that bit.
Rococo Atelier has a blog post about stitching together the boning channels and the stays, and includes her own Pinterest boards of different colored stays. I used her tutorial for the majority of my construction.
When I stitched the center front and center back channels, I did not stitch the boning channels right next to center front and center back, seen below:
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| The last boning channel is not stitched. |
Once all the channels were stitched, I took the flap of fabric on the center front and back panels and pinned it onto the buckram. I then re-drew the outermost boning channels on the blue fabric.
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| Fabric is pined down to prevent sliding when machine stitching. |
After doing this, I snipped off the excess at the bottom...
...and then I stitched the outermost boning channels.
I then tacked the fabric down along the edge of the second boning channel (the stitched channel closest to the edge). I will go back and baste this later.
Once all the panels were finished, I stitched the panels together using my machine. I pinned the seams of each panel together and stitched it with a running stitch, with two rows of stitches (because I'm paranoid). For the thread, I went with Coats and Clark Button and Craft thread - it's thicker and sturdier than the quilting thread.
When stitching the center front panels to the middle front panels, I stitched the first side without basting or tacking down the curved edge of the panel (seen below). And it was a b***h to get through the machine, especially along the lines I needed it to go. This was a learning moment for me. So when I got to the other side, I actually basted the curved edges to the middle front panels with the button thread, so it was easier to put through my machine. And it was MUCH easier.
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| Yay basting! |
After stitching all the panels together, I iron-pressed the seam allowances flat, in order to whipstitch them down in the future. And voila! They were starting to look like stays!
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| All the panels sewn together. |
Thanks for reading! Comments and constructive critiques are appreciated!
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