done

[dragonlady7]

with the bodice of the blue kirtle.
It fits oddly and the hemp boning down the sides (under the arms) looks absolutely terrible-- it is obviously too long, as instead of flaring out over my hips (which start higher up on my sides than I realized, oops), it digs into them and curves outward at my midriff instead. Ugly! But I haven't the skill to fix it at this point, so i am going to soldier bravely onward-- the bonus of the cord instead of more stiff boning is that well, it's soft, so at least it doesn't dig me in the hips like most corsets do. I have a freakishly short torso, or very high hip-fat, and must keep that in mind.

I still have to add about four more eyelets in the front, so the neckline is not final-- it *will* close all the way.

But it's the right size, which is great given that the instructions I was following said "follow this link to a site that will tell you how to make a pattern" and it was a dead link. So I made a "pattern" out of the tracing of the alteration of the corset that doesn't fit me, and it was, well, not terribly good. (There are basically no armholes. I freaked out. That's why it fits funny. I don't know how to fix it. Oh well. It's not uncomfortable, which is my primary worry.)

So here's a picture of me wearing it, over my really not-very-good First Garb, a totally handsewn cotton muslin shift with a ginormous neckline and various tailoring issues I won't get into. The damn thing is done and that's all I care about.




Now I'm going to go soak the thing in detergent for a while so maybe it won't smell like cow. Then I'm going to make a blind, idiotic attempt at pleating the skirt and attaching it, and perhaps I will have finished a wearable, supportive, outer garment. Hurrah!

I should note that I am wearing nothing but the shift and kirtle-- no bra-- so it is, at the least, functional as a supportive garment. Huzzah!

Comments

[kittyc1978.livejournal.com]

The fact that you attempt to sew garments that aren't scrub tops is quite impressive to me. All I've ever managed is a boxy shirt. Go you!

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I've always wanted to so I figured now's the time to try it!
I had a very experienced sewer walk me through making a shirt from a pattern once, so I know how it's supposed to work...

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

You can scoop out the armscyes a littel under the arms if you like and I think it looks good.

/Eva

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I should, and will if I can get myself up to it, but all the boning comes in there so I'd have to cut through all of it to do so, and it's sort of beyond me at the moment. But it would probably sit a whole lot better if I did, so I should make myself do it.

I love your new icon, incidentally.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

It looks great! I haven't dared try anything more complicated than a shift yet, so I'll be coming to you for advice when I have to start with the petticoats, bed-jackets and breeches :)

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I learned it all from the Internet, mostly. :)

You haven't? I thought you did all kinds of great stuff for Regia Anglorum!!!

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

Ah but none of the Anglo-Saxon clothes are fitted or boned or the like, and none of them are more complicated than a shift. The variation is all in width of sleeve or length of skirt. The most complicated thing involved is putting a few gores in to the skirts to make them fuller. Easy stuff. But I've started doing 18th Century now. I'm going to my first show next weekend in borrowed kit, and then I'll have to struggle to clothe the family!

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I actually cribbed heavily from Regia's notes to make my first shift, and I didn't find it all that easy-- but that's because all the directions just tell you "finish neckline" and I have no idea how that is to be actually done, so... Also I am comically inept at setting gores.

18th Century is my home period. That's how my parents met-- the Bicentennial celebrations of the American Revolution. They were both in the Brigade of the American Revolution (http://www.brigade.org). So I know much more about, and am much more comfortable in, 18th Century, just from going to events as a baby and playing dress-up in my folks' stuff as an adult. (My Dad also did American Civil War and WWI, but my mother didn't, as we'd come along by then and she couldn't face it. My father's easy to close in the later stuff, though, because he's such a small person (six feet, but only barely ten stone) that he fits in original stuff. People are bigger now, but Dad's just old-fashioned.)

You know who has good 18th C. patterns-- Reconstructing History (http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/rh834-early-1800s-stays.php?c=22&d=121&w=24&r=Y). I just discovered the owner/nearly-sole-proprietor on LJ-- kass_rants, and she's quite an interesting person. She does a lot of original research herself, though she has remarked that 18th C. is a bit like cheating because there is so much extant material you can just look it up and don't have to do any detective work. :) Anyway, she's only recently expanded into that time period and her stuff is really meticulously annotated, so at least to start with one of her patterns, with its extensive historical notes, may be a good way to go. I personally haven't used them, as I've actually never gotten far enough to buy a pattern, but since all the stuff I've made so far has been experimental, in cheap cloth, from pictures on the Internet, to wear to a giant mud-festival (I asked my camp-mates what shoes to buy and they said "Crocs".) I haven't bothered. And none of it is really as complicatedly-tailored as you'd think-- the boning is 100% straight lines, and the tailoring is "make it as tight as you can and if it's too tight put a placket behind the lacing", which is also not all that complicated. I'm going to attach a waistband and pleat a skirt to it today-- that's my ambition for the day-- and I'm absolutely at sea trying to think how to do so. It's kind of fun... (Actually RH has a tutorial on cartridge-pleating (http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/beginners.php?s=&c=8&d=141&e=&f=&g=&a=143&w=2) that I think I may follow. That's another neat thing about the site-- she was a purely informational site for years before she went to e-commerce.)

I love 18th C; I was raised in that aesthetic. I may move into that period as I continue my explorations of sewing for myself after Pennsic. I don't know of any historic re-enactment groups in my area at all, but I think I can probably find excuses to wear 18th C. stuff anywhere anyway... it's so durn pretty. I'll just call it "steampunk-inspired" even though it's 150 years too early for steampunk. No one cares, right?
(Kass of RH, above, has had a longstanding disgruntlement with the SCA, whose rules state "make a reasonable attempt at medieval European clothing", so while jocks show up in polyester t-tunics and sweatpants, she would show up in perfect Regency or Heian Japan and argue that her attempt was just as close as theirs-- she just missed by 3,000 miles or 300 years. I admit that's the sort of pedantry that amuses me.)

I'm sure your group has excellent sources of its own, so I won't blather at you any more about that. But it's a period I love-- and the tailoring intimidates me a little bit too.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

*g* I've had a look at a 'bed-jacket' pattern on the internet, and that looks as though it's within my kind of range of expertise. And making petticoats (with the pleating onto a waistband) doesn't look too hard. But I'm dreading the stays because I have very little patience and once I get bored I start making stupid mistakes and then losing my temper and making it all worse. And I've got to make a set for Rose too! And the breeches look impossible! In fact, the lady who's getting us clothes to borrow said that she didn't understand breeches either, and she's been in the society for years! (I guess she has no menfolk to sew for.)

I like the 18th Century clothes a lot too, particularly for the men! We're doing early to mid century, and I can't wait to see Andrew in a frock coat :) Except when I realize that I'm going to have to make it! Even mariners cuffs fill me with trepidation.

Thanks for the URL! That does look good, and I can see I'm going to need a pattern for the breeches if for nothing else.

Heh, the SCA have the same effect on Regia. Regia have a reputation for being a bunch of humourlous authenticity freaks, and it is indeed completely true :) But we're the best, and that's how we stay that way! And the Mannered Mob, who are the 18th Century outfit we've just joined seem to be cut from the same cloth.

Speaking of cloth, I need to buy myself some, as I haven't even got that far yet.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

The pair-of-bodies I made weren't actually terribly difficult-- all straight lines. I think this "stays" thing isn't nearly as hard as people think. Later corsets-- Victorian and the like-- are probably terrifying, but these weren't so bad. Mind I have yet to use any really serious boning materials-- but I've seen late Elizabethan done with cable ties, and all they say is to be sure to double them up, two to a channel.
I had a good look at the stays my mother made herself, while I was home, and they really didn't seem terribly complex. Time-consuming, yes. Complicated, not so much. She used fake plastic whalebone, and that was enough for her but she was much thinner then-- all ribcage and no breasts. (I think she was a 38B.)

It's just a question of using the machine's foot as a spacer, being consistent, and just running it across a couple layers of cheap linen or cotton several dozen times until you have enough channels, then whacking whatever boning material in while you watch TV or something. Monotonous, time-consuming, really not *terribly* fiddly. (I guess hand-sewing it is even easier technically, it just takes for-freaking-ever, but you can get the boning material in really tight if you sew it in as you go along.)

Mind I haven't made any really supportive stays yet. Still working on that. But I know zip ties work well for lots of people, and they are simple as anything to work with-- cut the ends off with regular scissors, and push them in, and you're done.

(RH's shipping to the UK is probably prohibitive, but I know she has numerous European wholesalers, so it may be worth dropping her a line and asking.)

I don't know anything about breeches either, so I can't help you much there at the moment, but I can make sure to have a look in Dad's re-enactment kit while I'm home and ask how hard those were to make.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

It's all the triangular bits of fabric that phase me out:

http://www.marquise.de/en/1700/howto/frauen/18corset2.shtml

not to mention the little scalloppy bits around the hips. I also have problems with the size of the boobs. Though mine are just an E cup, it's still big enough to need serious support :) Fortunately the group we're going to start with this weekend have taken our measurements (mine and Rose's) and are making us some corrugated cardboard stays for the weekend (judiciously covered with material). So I will be able to use them to cut around for a pattern.

I'm tempted to hand sew the channels just because it's so much more controllable, though I might change my mind on that when it comes to it!

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

It's funny the context that gives rise to the phrase "just an E cup".

Corrugated cardboard!!! Will that even work temporarily??? Yow.

The lines and triangles and all really don't seem that hard to me. It's just the difficulty of sewing straight lines perfectly (well, somewhat) parallel. But it's really not that hard.
Hand-sewing the channels is great for control's sake, and makes inserting the boning material a breeze, but it really comes down to how fast you can sew fifty to a hundred ten-inch straight lines, and at what point you just wig out.

Curves are what are impossible for me, and that's what's keeping me entirely out of modern tailoring.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking of using the strongest boning material I can find, but having fewer channels. If I use something very rigid, like plastic whalebone or even steel, I should be able to get away with half-boned, laced tight.

Rose's (because she's only 14) will be more jumps than stays, and possibly only have four bones in the whole thing.

I'll get back to you with a full report on the success of cardboard on Monday!

[greenworldgirl.livejournal.com]

Yays for completing stuff! That's the hardest part.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is just the top half. But yes-- I have several other garments that just need this little thing or that little thing and then they'll be done, but they don't have whatever little thing because whatever it is, it's hard.