1770's Robe a l'anglaise -

Underpinnings

6-21-06

It has been almost two months since my last update, but worry not, fair readers, I have been most productive! And even better, I have pictures! On the stays front, I went ahead and used the Diderot pattern from attempt #1, using two layers of white cotton coutil and an outter layer of silk satin. And I broke with tradition and used 1/4" steel boning, except for the cener front which is a 1/2" steel bone. The eyelets are hand bound and reinforced with metal rings, as per the same method I outlined in the half-boned stays. Here's a view from the back.

Next was the bumroll, which after much discussion, was determined to be the appropriate thing to wear under a robe a l'anglaise. I drafted the so-called "Sausage Pad" pattern directly out of Hunnisett's Period Costume for Stage & Screen 1500-1800 and used it exactly as is. I ended up with a nicely sized pad that looks pretty good under a skirt.

And that's all folks! Now that I have the necessary undergarments, I can begin draping the toile for the bodice!

4-30-06

Again, no progress to report, just wanted to jot down some notes to myself about what I'm going to do for the next (and hopefully final) pair of stays.

#1 - Do I stick with the Butterick pattern, or do I go back to the Diderot pattern I originally drafted from Corsets & Crinolines? I like the Diderot pattern, and was merely curious about the Butterick pattern, which is why I switched from one to the other. Plus I wanted to make a pair of stays with instructions on construction before deciding if I wanted to wing it on my own. Things are kind of looking like the winging it option is what I want, for the one reason that I discovered the Butterick pattern had too many modern concessions. Nice pattern, but making the Butterick pattern period would be about the same amount of work figuring out what I need to do with the Diderot pattern.

#2 - Hand sew the binding. I mean, I'm sick of binding stuff on the machine. Its just not fun. I think I can get better results if I just suck it up and do it by hand. What's more, it finally dawned on me to do the binding without stitching one side down and then folding it over to cover the edge. I've been doing that method for years and it's only now occurred to me that just "capping" the raw edges in double fold bias binding makes a whole lot more sense with corset tabs. I am such a dork sometimes.

#3 - To hand sew or not to hand sew? I go back and forth on this issue every time I make a new pair of stays, because I know I have it in me to be all obsessive and historically accurate, but when it comes right down to it, I just hate the thought of doing all those boning channels by hand. Don't know why... With the amount of complicated hand sewing that eventually happens regardless, sewing a bunch of straight stitches by hand doesn't seem all that bad. I dunno. I'm probably going to flip flop back and forth a bunch of times before making my final decision on the matter.

4-25-06

I have not made any more progress since the last update, but that's because I was busy putting on a huge fashion show for UC Davis. However, I found Bjarne Drews has made a spectacular set of 1740's stays (alright, what hasn't he done that isn't spectacular?) and he included what amounts to a photo laden step-by-step account of his process. And best of all, he included all kinds of good images of the inside of the stays, which show the proper way to add horizontal boning, in case anyone was confused about what I was talking about in previous entries.

In other news, I am going to be making another 18th century corset. Because I'm a psychotic perfectionist, so there.

4-07-06

I actually 95% finished the Butterick stays last Saturday, but I've been really busy, so I didn't get around to taking pics until tonight.

Front	Back

I used green 100% silk taffeta for the outter layer, white cotton twill for the lining and white cotton sateen for the inner layer. Its bound with 1/4" black bias tape, which I want to say, SUCKS to sew around the tabs.

Anyway, there's some issues with the pattern that I want to address. The biggest issue is the way its boned. Typically, in 18th century corsets, the horrizontal boning is added in as an additional piece to the inside, so that the center front boning extends from the top of the corset to the bottom. The folks over at Butterick apparently felt this was too confusing, so they opted instead to just do the horrizontal boning across the front and only bone the center front vertically from the bottom horrizontal boning to the end. It gives the right look, so what's the big deal if it's not accurate?

Well, the big deal as it were, is that the horrizontal boning is not supported, so it collapses in on itself. The second problem is that the vertical boning doesn't do anything to support the horrizontal boning, and causes a break under the breasts where they need the most support.

My plan on fixing this is to add a few rows of vertical boning as a supplemental piece to the inside of the corset, in order to prevent the horrizontal boning from telescoping in on itself, as in the picture.

The other problem I have is that the size 10 is still too big. I can almost close it on my body. So, this one will probably be finished and given to Katie who is also in need of a good 18th century corset, and I'll be making it yet again in a smaller size.

3-31-06

So, I bought Butterick 4254 and dug up a few images of people's attempts at the pattern on the net, for reference. Obvious mistake to be avoided is going off the sizing on the pattern, for the garment has a crap-ton of ease factored in, like it would with normal clothes. Instead, I guessed that I'd be making at least a size, if not two sizes smaller so it would fit like it should. Upon opening the package, I found that the finished waist sizes are printed on the front piece in each size, so that made things a bit easier. I chose the Size 10 which has a finished waist size of 24 1/2", which is a good 3 inches smaller than my actual waist size. But because I am a skeptic, I actually overlapped the pieces to eliminate the seam allowances and double checked the waist measurement... Sure enough, it was indeed 24 1/2".

I debated on making the Size 8, which has a finished waist size of 23 1/2", but that just seemed like it would wind up being a touch too small. Of course, all this debating would have been made easier if I'd opted for the Front and Back lacing view, but I really don't care for front lacing corsets all that much (granted, all of my effigy corsets are front lacing, but whatever). I just happen to prefer solid front corsets, y'know?

Anyhoo.

Another thing I've noticed on most of the images of this corset is that the top of the corset almost universally laces closed at the back, regardless of body type, while there's a gap at the waist. This is Not Cool™. I expect to be doing a bit of tweaking to get the back to have a uniform spacing all the way down when laced.

Another issue people have complained about with this pattern is that the back is too high and therefore gaps at the neck. This was the same thing I encountered on my initial straight-from-the-book effigy corset, but the problem was solved by cutting the neckline into a V shape, with the point of the V starting 4 or so inches down from the nape of my neck, and ending the boning a good 2" from the point of the V. This possibly could solve the lacing problem mentioned above, or at least limit it.

And finally, the straps are just too big. Period. There's no reason for them to be that wide, and so they will be shaved down to a more acceptible width, which will hopefully prevent them from showing under the straps of the bodice (the period equivillent of having one's bra straps showing, I suppose).

All that said, I haven't actually cut into any fabric, but I'm working up to that point. Had to hunt through my stash to find enough white cotton twill, and then wash it, wait for it to dry and now I need to iron it. But I just though I'd keep you all informed anyway.

3-28-06

So, my first mock up of the corset was a two part failure. First, I had shaved a bit too much off of the pattern resulting in it being about 5" too small (which, considering this is a corset, means it was about 7" off). Not terrible, but not fantastic. The second problem was that I had managed to completely disregard my boning diagram on my pattern and boned the tabs incorrectly. Rather than doing this, I did this. This resulted in the corset boning digging into my waist and hips rather than smoothing over them in a comfortable manner.

So I remade it and boned the tabs as I usually do for my effigy corsets, and made it bigger, and it worked. Still not really happy with it, and I'm not sure why. I covered the white cotton twill with some of the blue silk duipioni left over from my 1890s gown, and it looks really pretty. Still, I think eventually I'm going to make a different style of corset, but for now, it'll do.

All that I need to do now is finish stitching the binding down and put the grommets in (again, because this is a "quick and dirty" corset, I'm not going to waste time doing hand bound eyelets).

3-26-06

First, the corset. You may remember that I scaled up a corset from Corsets & Crinolines, so I'll just repost what I wrote a year ago:

Here's the pattern I scaled up from Corsets & Crinolines. Just drew a grid over the drawing in the book and then transferred the dimensions to 1" graph paper, doing my best to estimate the placement of the boning. It's not an exact science, but it gets you close enough.

The pattern turned out to be quite a bit larger than I anticipated. Usually, I don't have to fuss too much with these things to get them to fit, but apparently this particular pair of stays fit someone larger than what we think of as "typical" dainty 18th century proportions. It's nice to know that not everyone had that 18" waist in real life, isn't it?

Next, I put on my modified effigy corset to get the approximate shape, making fitting the toile easier. In the photo to the left, you can see where I've redrawn the side seam and adjusted the neckline and shoulder piece to fit my own proportions. The waist tabs haven't been cut, and I'm still debating on whether or not to add them separately as the pattern seems to indicate (there's a waist seam, which I've drawn in here just in case I do decide to make the tabs separate, as opposed to all in one with the stays, like the effigy corset has). I like the non-fussy aspect of cutting the tabs from the stays, rather than piecing in the tabs to a waistband. Plus there's less room for bulk if I leave the waist seam out. Both methods appear to be period, so I'm not worried about that much.

That's as far as I've gotten so far today, considering I've caught a cold and haven't been feeling all that great. Now I need to hunt through my fabric stash to see if I can find some good fabric to make the stays from, and draft out the shoulder straps.

Well, that was as far as I got then, but at least I have a better idea now that I've actually made a corset using this pattern. The corset for the Rococo outfit in my fashion line was made with the pattern I'd drafted for this project. And while it didn't seem to fit last year, it fits pretty good this year. I haven't gained any weight, so I think the difference is just having it boned rather than trying to get an idea of the fit from an unboned, unlined muslin mock up. I will say, though, that for the purposes of this costume, I'm going to make it smaller. The fashion corset, pictured on the left, is not as restricting as I'd like for something in a historical costume, though it has about a 2 inch gap in the back. I wasn't laced very tightly for this photo shoot, though.

So, with that out of the way, the next question is side hoops, or bumroll? I'd have guessed side hoops but the more I look at the sketches and the extant dress in Costume Close-up, the more I wonder if a large bumroll would be a better choice. My main concern is that I'm petite and paniers, no matter how minimal, would look extreme on me. I may have to make one of each and experiment a bit with how they alter my silhouette before I make my final decision.

More to come!