A Most Beguiling Accomplishment

(get it, do you get it) Wow!  This afternoon I went to my mom's and watched some TV and sewed, and I totally finished all of the eyelets in my stays - the two CB rows, and the eight to hold the straps to the front.  Next step is to finish the channels so I can put the reed in and bind this sucker. Last night, I discovered that Fort Ticonderoga is doing a re-enactor thing on my birthday weekend, "Struggle for Liberty".  I've got a blue petticoat half done (the side seams are finished) and enough of a printed natural linen to make a jacket - I actually mostly made some of it up into the one in Patterns of Fashion I that doesn't have a waist seam, but it turned out too short for even me; my plan is to use those pieces where I can, piece, and use the leftover couple of yards to do one of the jackets that has a waist seam and is therefore easier to mess with if I do it too small as well.  So that will be my birthday present to myself!  Going to my first non-RenF...

In September 2009, I finally let myself order the stays kit from Silly Sisters in blue linen.  It took me months and months - it's hard to commit to sewing miles of boning channels when you have papers to write - but I think around the September of 2010 I had them basically finished (minus the lining and maybe a row or two of horizontal boning across the sides).  I used the 1730s-1740s pattern in Corsets & Crinolines , as I really like that period and plan to make a gown from it for my own nefarious purposes, and the instruction from Cherry Dawson's stays workshop (now offline).

First of all, hello to all of my new watchers!  Sorry for the lack of updates.  At least I've made more recent posts here than on my Tumblr? D: I haven't done any sewing lately, apart from finishing the front eyelets ( ooooooooh ).  I think I'm kind of scared that I'm going to do something incredibly stupid to my 1790s stays, but I need to just get over that and put in some more channels.  Yesterday my mother underwent surgery on her foot, and now she's of course laid up - I'm working at the Dance Museum today, but tomorrow I think I'll take my computer and sewing over to her house and watch something period while I backstitch. I'm still having a hard time finding costume collections with garments relative to my thesis at a reasonable distance from here.  The Cornell collection has something from the 1780s and a few Regency dresses; I'm going to contact Sturbridge Village (or explore their site more thoroughly) to find out what they have.  What I...