June & July 2020
My stays and petticoat are loosely based on the Venetian Courtesan portrait and the portrait of Eleanor Vernon in Patterns of Fashion 4, the inspiration portion being that the stays will not be made of the same fabric as the petticoat, indicating that they are separate pieces rather than an under kirtle or sottana. I began the stays and petticoat by custom drafting a corset pattern utilizing the method of the Elizabethan Corset Pattern Generator with some consideration taken for the process that is outlined in the Modern Maker #2, in particular the adding of straps and shaping of the back.
I chose to go with a front opening set of stays for ease of getting into them by myself and I also chose to do a single piece of fabric set of stays rather than ones with back seams as I felt this was a possible weak point where the seams could split since I am a fluffy girl. I cut the pattern out in 2 layers of linen canvas interlining, one layer of linen lining, and one outer layer of a bronze colored silk. I also started a kumihimo cord using a dark purple pearl cotton for the lacing cord of the stays.
In July, I began by serging the layers of the stays together along the front sides and the bottom of the stays. After serging was completed, I machine stitched in the boning channels at ¾” for the boning in the front and back of the stays following the pattern in Modern Maker #2.
I decided to use ½’ wide reed for the stays that was purchased in rolls. After the channels were stitched in place, I cut the pieces of reed using craft scissors and used a piece of sandpaper to round and smooth the ends of the reed. I decided to use 2 pieces of reed in each channel which helped with straightening the reed that was curled from being in a roll.
After all of the reed was placed in the channels, I made bias tape from some scrap purple silk from my stash.
This is my favorite tutorial for making bias tape: https://makeit-loveit.com/make-continouos-strip-bias-tape-binding
I used the bias tape silk to encase all of the edges of the stays. The bias tape was stitched on by hand starting on the fashion fabric side of the stays, on the inside of the bais tape. The bottom and top edges were stitched in with a back stitch to add strength to the seams that would help keep the reed in the casing, the rest of the first stitches along the straps and front edges were done as a running stitch. After the bias tape was stitched completely along the fashion fabric side of the stays, the bias tape was folded over and hand stitched using a slip stitch to hide the stitching on the inside of the stays.
I handworked the eyelets over brass lacing rings to help give them strength in the same pearl cotton that was used for the lacing braid. The eyelets were worked in a button hole stitch.
After the eyelets were completed, I finished the kumihimo braid for lacing the stays and hand stitched it into the bottom left of the front of the stays.
Following the stays, I began the petticoat that is made from the same linen that is the lining of the stays. I decided to do a basic 3 panel skirt with a waistband. Three panels were cut at full fabric width and then serged along the weft. The panels were cut long enough to add wool felt to stiffen the hem line and fold this over into the hem.
The panels were machine stitched for construction, followed by hand finishing the seams in a flat fell. Five widths of wool felt were cut at 2”wide for the hem stiffening. The wool felt was machine stitched to the inside of the skirt, which was then folded over to encase the wool and hand hemmed down.
Four widths of the bronze colored silk was cut on the straight grain in a 2 inch guard. The guard was serged and the panels stitched together to make one long strip. They were then hand stitched along the hem line at the bottom and two inches above with a slip stitch to hide the stitching and hide the visible edge of the hem because of the stiffening in the hem stitching at the bottom of the skirt.
After the hem and guard were finished being stitched, I serged the waistband, and then pinned knife pleats into the skirt. I decided to only pleat the skirt around the back of the skirt to the hips to keep from adding bulk along the front at the waist line. I machine stitched the pleats in place onto the waistband and then hand finished the inside of the waist band. To finish the petticoat and stays, I added two flat skirt hooks and eyes into the waistband to close the petticoat.
