Stays (part 1)

Nothing much has happened on my mitts, I have sewn quite a bit of them, but just haven't touched them for some time! I will come back to them, but first...my stays!

Now, my dear friend Lidi came down to visit me for a couple of days and she did some wonderfuk work in helping me make a pattern and toile for my own set of stays and I cannot thank her enough! We took the initial pattern from my Elizabethan bodies and adapted it to make it into a stay pattern and then made up a toile, it looked a little like this:

The first attempt fitted well and only a few minor adjustments were needed so it didn't take long to reach the point of making up the final pattern pieces (drawing on bone channels) and then cutting it out in silk brocade and canvas (drawing bone channels onto the canvas):

It took 8 hours to get this far...so we went to bed!

The following day was the start of the sewing, yay! I had decided to hand-sew my stays as it would be more rewarding...and I have the time to! Some say I'm a glutton for punishment, others a masochist.

So, onto the seams. Lidi told me to start by doing tacking stitches along the seam line and then trim the seam allowance down a bit (I always use an inch for SA) and then hem it down. If the seam is to cover some of the boning channels, then I would sew them first using backstitch (this is where the drawn on channels come in handy!) Once the seams have been down on 2 of the stay pieces, then they can be sewn together. To do this I pinned them right sides together and (without tying a knot in the thread) stitched them together with the tiniest of whip stitches, only going through the silk as there are channels that run along the seams. This is the stage I am at now and it will take some time as there are 7 stay pieces to sew together and nearly 50 bone channels to sew too! Here are some photos of what I have just explained, plus a few extra:

Mitt patterning

This took some time to do as I've never made anything like it before - I got my original pattern from here.

For my first pattern attempt (left), I measured around my (bent) arm just below the elbow, then the wrist and then around the knuckles and drew the pattern from these measurements adding an inch for the seam allowance and a bit extra for the point at the top. From this pattern, I made a toile (cutting on the bias) and found that it was quite tight and so I made the seam alowance smaller and it fitted better, but was a bit loose in some places. It was just a case of pinning and tacking and trying on to get it to fit perfectly.

Once I was satisfied with the first toile, I drew around it onto a new piece of paper to make another pattern (right). To be on the safe side, I made a new toile from this second pattern to make sure it would fit - it did, but had to have a few minor adjustments made.

I also made a pattern and toile for the thumb piece. For this, I measured the front, back and two sides of my thumb up until the point it bends and also around the hole I had cut in my first toile. I converted these measurements to some form of strange looking pattern, but like with the first mitt toile, it just required some pinning and tacking to get it to fit right. When I was satisfied, I drew around it on a new piece of paper for the final pattern and then sewed it to the second mitt toile.

The second toile fitted really well so I un-did the mitt seam to draw around to make a FINAL pattern! (left) I made the necessory adjustments and added a 1/2" seam allowance all the way round.

In fact, making mitts aren't hard at all, you just need a bit of patience as the constant pinning and tacking can take a while, but (obviously) worth it in the end!

The toiles, the first one on the left, the second on the right.

The finished patterns pinned and ready to cut from the silk. You can just see the thumb pattern in the bottom left corner!

I am now in the middle of actually making them, at last!

Lucy Locket lost her pocket...

...but hopefully I won't be losing mine! I've just made one (of two) C18th pockets, huzzah!

I made the pattern after looking at extant pockets and reproduction pockets - they were very large! The size of my pattern was the same height as a sheet of A4 paper, but slightly wider with the pocket opening being half the length, as you should be able to see in the picture below:

I then cut this pattern out on white cotton and some brocade silk adding a small seam allowance according to the width of my binding I was to use and cutting the pocket slit in the silk only.

After this, I then pinned and sewed the binding (just a quick note: the binding and thread was bought online and I was amazed to find that the brocade pattern, binding and thread all matched exactly!) around the opening of the pocket. I sewed it to the front first before sewing it to the back.

I then pinned some binding to the outer edge of both the silk and cotton together (and in my case, pattern side up) and, as before, sewn front first. I used a back stitch when sewing the front as this will form the seam of the pocket. I used a whip stitch (?) for the back.

Hey presto! It's done! All I have to do now is make the other in exactly the same way! After that then I will wait until my stays are made before attaching a long piece of binding to the top as both pockets were tied around the waist on one piece of ribbon/tape.

The 18th Century is in vogue!

Yes, another year, another century! I've been wanting to do the C18th for some time and now I have finally got round to it!

So my first item of Georgian clothing was a cap. I started this in the afternoon , about 3pm, on 19/04/10 and finished it at 10.20pm on 20th. I worked it that I made the cap under 19.5 hours!

After searching about on the internet for a pattern to follow, I came across this one. Reading it through it all made sense so I decided to follow it although I had slightly different pattern pieces. As there is no need to write up how I made it, I shall post pictures with captions. If you want to make one, then the first picture I'll post of the pettern pieces will show measurements which you may copy - it should fit any head (mine measures 22") and any hair length as there seems to be plenty of room in the bag for long hair.

Pattern pieces with measurements.

Cut fabric pieces

The first frill.

The final piece pinned - the top cap band and frill.

Finished cap.

Back view.

Finished gown.

So, here it is being modled at a Medieval wedding I worked at on 29th Dec. I have seen a painting showing women with their gowns hitched up at the front to show off a skirt underneath so this is what I did - I used my green/gold shot silk taffeta petticoat I use for my Elizabethan gown just to be a bit more posh! I'm also wearing a medieval hood seen in many paintings. The pattern was taken from the Medieval Tailors Assistant by Sarah Thursfield and then adjusted to be more fashionable - it also has the black loop which I made a cord for.

Here is a close up of the hood:

Medieval gown.

After the kirtle, I then proceeded with the gown. This is the same pattern as the kirtle, but slightly enlarged to fit over the top. The following pictures show where the pattern was cut to allow adjustment:

For the side front, I followed the red line (please ignore the green one!) but the line was straighter.

For the front panel, I followed the green line (please ignore the red one!) but the line was straighter.

When cutting out the fabric, I made length a little longer, and the neckline a bit higher.

I then pinned the seam allowances - an inch as per usual and started to sew by hand...

As the gown was to be side laced, but to also have sleeves sewn on then some strong sewing was in order. I sewed about 1.5" under the arm nice and strong, before leaving the gap for the lacing (that goes down to waist line) and the gap to allow to put the gown on easily (to about mid-hip line).

The seams were all neatened like the ones on the kirtle, apart from the side seams which needed to have eyelets sewn in to. I neatened this as an flat seam, but turned over so there weren't any raw edges! In the 7" where there were to be eyelets, I inserted a piece of canvas to give it extra strength. The I sewed in the eyelets and made some cord for the lacing.

Then it was time for the sleeves. Again, I used the same pattern as I did for the kirtle sleeves, but made them longer, bigger around the top half so they would fit over my kirtle sleeves and I added a flared bit at the end for turned back sleeves:

I then attached them and neatened the seams. When I tried it on, it turned out I needed to take the sleeves in to make them tighter.

Once this was done, I had help in pinning the hem as, of course, I didn't want my kirtle to end up on show. Once I had hemmed it, I cut out long strips of wool to make a guard to going around the hem - for decoration and protection. I then neatened up the neckline after checking that the kirtle will not show and then attached some black wool to that, purely for decoration! And hey presto, the gown was finished and all hand-sewn! I will post a picture of it in a new blog, seeing as this one is quite long.

Extra! Extra! I took my kirtle and gown into one of my lectures (one of my modules last semester was about Medieval Suffolk) as it was on medieval clothing among other topics. Everyone was impressed, yay! :)

Finished Kirtle.

Sorry it's been a long time, but I've been busy with uni work :)

Anyway, I managed to get the kirtle finished soon after my last post. I sewed on the lacing rings, positioned for spiral lacing and made a cord for it to be laced up.


Here is the finished thing (my coif has gone missing since this photo! :/ )