At Her Leisure

I put on my new corset last night and took pictures.



I bent the busk in at the bottom, but I think I still need to bend it some more so it curves in under the bust and then back out over the belly.



I've got a little more spring in the lacing than I did when I made it because my arms were sore after spending Sunday moving non-functional cars around and I just didn't feel like pulling laces behind my back much. But I was in the mood to take the pictures and thought I ought to go with it while I felt the urge. It's been sitting around waiting to be photographed for a month already.

I had the day off work and not much on my to-do list so I spent a good deal of time working on my 1876 corset. I found that the busks I have are both 12", and this corset needs a 14" busk. I ordered one, but until it arrives I'm stuck. I got everything assembled except for the center front panels and put in the grommets and all the boning channels, again except for the center front. Now I just have to wait for the postal service. I could cut the bones, but it will be easier to manipulate the corset while putting on the center front panels if it's unboned.

Instead I'll hem a dress I mostly made last weekend then go back to the waistcoat until my busk arrives.

Five years ago theladyrebecca made the De Gracieuse corset from 1876. Amy Galles, a friend of hers, had extracted the corset pattern from the original pattern sheet, blown it up to full size, and made a PDF of it. Rebecca was kind enough to share it with me. Here's her first post on her project.

I must have printed it out differently because with scaling set to "none" or "actual size" - yes, I tried two different PDF readers with the same result - I ended up with a corset that is 17" long at the center front and 29" around the waist. She came out with only 5.5" above the waist while I came out with 8" above the top of the hip gore, which is probably slightly below the waist. The hip came out to 40". The bust is hard to estimate because it was just massive on me, but it's probably close to 40" too.

Before I cut it I lined up the pattern pieces and measured where I thought the waist would be, and I came up with 26", which is only an inch over where I figured I would need it to be. That was not where we ended up. I guess I'm as bad at measuring corset patterns as I am measuring knitting! (And no, the mockup did not stretch. I checked it against the pattern after I tried it on, and if anything, I was a little inside the stitching lines when I sewed it together.)

I'm calling this mockup a failure. I'm reprinting at 85% scale, which should take about 4" off the waist and 2" or better off the length. Here's hoping that puts me in the right ballpark.

2020 was an odd year, no doubt. I was lucky that I was able to go to the George Washington Ball in Williamsburg the week before everything spiraled into chaos. With nothing else going on, I got a lot more time for needlework than usual this year, and by summer I realized I was churning stuff out way too fast. I started working on things that take a lot more time to get a finished product like cross-stitching and knitting.

I made two things this year that I really love – an 18th century domino and a Victorian shawl. I'm happy with a lot of my other stuff, but those are just some of the coolest things I’ve ever made.

( This year's projects behind the cut )

I have fabric I want to make into an 1840's dress so I decided I needed a couple more petticoats. And then I got the brilliant idea that a faux horsehair petticoat was in order. (Take the word "brilliant" with a grain of salt.) So I made a petticoat out of hard-finish organdy. It was a bear. Normally I don't mind doing tucks, but with this fabric, it was a battle. I seriously considered quitting at five, but it didn't look right so I finished all seven. And this afternoon I realized that I'm not sure I've seen horsehair petticoats with tucks - there might be a reason for that. But now it's done, and I can do something more enjoyable.



It's got plenty of body, but I have yet to see how it does under a dress.

I finally got around to making the chemisette to go with the 1850's dress I made last winter. It only took me four months to get around to it? And then it took two days to sew. Ridiculous.



It's cotton eyelet and based off the same pattern the basque was based off. Base patterns are the best. It pins closed at the neck and ties at the waist. Now I just have to get worked up enough to put it all on and take pictures.

I should post about Costume College and how much fun it was, but this is turning out to be a very busy day so you get a picture of the first tatted edging I've put on a garment instead.



I got a lot more tatting done during classes than I expected so I'm 3/4 finished with the neck edging. At the rate I'm going, it will be done within the next ten days.

I finished off the petticoats for my 1830's underwear, and I tried it all on last night. Sorry, no pictures. I think the silhouette is pretty good, though I still need to make sleeve puff things before I do the dress. I did find that I need to add just a little boning to my 1820's stays to be able to wear them for the 1830's. They bunch up a bit at the waist, which is fine for the 1820's with its raised waist, but by the time the waist is back to the natural waist (or really close to it) in the 1830's, it's not going to work. Rather than making new stays just for the 1830's, I'm going to add bones at the center back and possibly on the side seams.

Now the big project for the weekend is kitchen painting. We'll see whether I get time to start the turn-of-the-eighteenth-century mantua over the weekend or not.

I finished off a crinoline bustle last night.



It's made following instructions from an 1868 issue of Harper's Bazar. I substituted cotton crinoline for horsehair and a tape at the waist for the cord at the waist, but otherwise I think I followed the instructions pretty well. The HEARTH website has all the instructions online, but they can also be found on page 476 of Reconstruction Era Fashions.

I think my project explosion of a few weeks ago has now been largely resolved. I'm down to the 1912 vest, which is on hold until I order more yarn, the pineapple bag, and a Regency shortgown. It's been nice doing a few quick and easy projects because my next project will be a set of c. 1700 stays.

I made quite a bit this year, including four knit pinballs.



The rest is behind the cut.

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