I decided today that it's a good idea to make short stays. I don't know why. Actually I do. Cause they're cool and I also have the chance of volunteering at a regency ball. I don't know if I will actually get the position though. But I'm making short stays anyways.
I finished my stays this weekend, topping it off with 2 days of hand stitching the bias tape. I'm really really happy with how it came out. I'm most proud of adapting a tabbed stays pattern into a pointed stays pattern. My sewing has definitely come a long way since last year.
Today, ive been working on the first rough mock up for the full Calypso dress! I decided to use the Ivy pattern based on polls/my own notes, so thats where i started from :)
To make the velvet pattern (pink), i had to merge some of my corset panels together to give me more traditional dress lines. I merged 5/6 at the back, and then 1/2 in the front, which is where im not 100% on things.
My original plan was to use the 1/2 seam as my dress seam & merge 2/3 together, but i realised that was going to make the centre front skirt really narrow, and it would only get narrower further down. By splitting it the way i have, the skirt sections are going to end up pretty perfect (the centre panel is ~20cm wide, while the sides are 15cm), but the upper section sits pretty far round the side. I probably wouldnt be bothered, but i have bust cups to add on & i need to consider it all comes together.
The seams on the original costume do actually sit much further out than i remembered (which technically means theyre in the wrong place...), but its still not as far out as the seam im currently using.
So i have four potential plans of attack-
do the dart as normal, having the seam end without matching up to anything else. i dont super like this plan, it feels... sloppy to me, but it kinda seems like thats what they did on the original dress, so itd be accurate...
have a seamed cup, but put the seam in a different place to make it seem more thought through. im not sure exactly what this would be yet, but theres an idea forming in my head about angling the underbust line up into a point where the seam meets it (making an intersection that looks like this 🟀, if that makes sense)
play around with gathers. again, theres different ways i could play with this but (barring any issues when i test run it) im pretty committed to gathering the centre front section vertically to shape the cup. i think it'll look the most cohesive to the rest of the design, considering itll already be cut pretty low there. itll feel like a focal point, instead of being out of place like other gathers would.
move with the seam of the main dress. this would be more risky because it would mean i was messing with the fit of the entire corset, instead of just a fashion layer, but maybe has the chance for the best results??? id bring the seam further inwards at the top, but keep the bottom in the same place to not compromise the skirt.
Idk!! i think im just going to have to think on it for a while...
I like the sound of the gathers, but its something thats either going to look really good or really bad, with no wiggle room in between- and they'll be in velvet. a seamed cup will always be less obtrusive, so i have more ease for it to look weird, but im not quite sure how to actually execute things. i dont really want to move the seams on the corset just for the cups, but if you guys think theyre in a weird place anyway, then ill have a mess around.
oh, and here was it after i snipped open the front panel because i made it too narrow at the top (i knew i was doing this when i did it... and yet)
Thrilled with how my 18th century stays turned out! This was a hugely intimidating project for me but it’s done and I’m happy with it so on to the dress.
pattern is the 1860s gored corset from Redthreaded. I bought this corset from them but in a large size, which is way too big. So remaking it two sizes smaller, and in blue (or purple-really can't tell the color of this fabric)
