Completed 1760's stays

The 1760's stays were completed two weeks ago and now I finally got around to post them here on the blog. This project actually started out as I wanted to try out how fast I could make a pair of fully-boned stays. It took me two weeks to about 10 days to sew this pair which is my quickest so far. Though, I must admit I could have finished them in about half of that time or even less because I honestly couldn't help myself getting distracted by the internet. (There are so many lovely costume making blogs out there!) This pair is made out of two layers of cotton and lined in linen and all of the materials came from my stash , except the bias binding. 

 

Compared to the 1780's stays, these stays give you a much more straight profile at the front.

For the first time in long time I felt confident enough to bind the lacing holes by hand because I was sure of how the holes should be placed.

On the inside the seam allowances were whip-stitched down by hand.

I guess I'm starting to get used to binding the edges of stays as it's not as hard as it used to be. If you want your stays to be bound beautifully, I definitely recommend that your binding shouldn't be seen on the outside for more than 5 mm and that you start to bind the stays from the inside so you can control how it looks on the outside more easily.  Also, the narrower and the stretchier your binding tape is, the easier it is to attach to the stays without any problems. Besides, from what I've seen, I've noticed that the extant stays are mostly bound with really narrow tapes anyhow. I agree with Isis pointing out that most of the extant stays also seem to be square at the end of the tabs, rather than rounded. As said before, the square ends are much easier to bind than the rounded. I've noticed that really narrow tabs are also extremely hard to bind as well.

I lined the stays first before adding the binding around the edges. I just kind of prefer the neat, finished look of doing it this way. Plus, you don't have to bind every tab separately.

Now I'm finally starting to feel confident enough to make a pair of hand-sewn stays, hopefully in not-too-distant future... It has always felt like such a waste of time to me to sew stays by hand because I would end up disliking them anyway as I knew I didn't know enough to make a really good pair... Anyhow, the next post is going to be about other undergarments I made for 1760's costumes.