going back to 1650

I'm moving forward with the next corset even though I don't have final pictures of the last. I'll get them, but if I keep waiting to start the next corset until I manage to get stockings so I can photograph the last one I could be a while. So back to 1650.

Page 36 of Corsets and Crinolines has a boned lining of a bodice in silk moiré. Here it is after I've enlarged the pattern, first 200% then 207%.

The notes say it has, "large elbow length sleeves with cuffs sewn into the arm hole and fine pleating on the shoulder. It also has a basque made of twenty-eight small tassets sewn together." I happen to have a copy of Norah Waugh's The Cut of Women's Clothes: 1600-1930 and the complete pattern, with sleeves, is printed there. There is a lovely painting by Gerard ter Borch at The National Gallery, London, A Young Woman Playing a Harpsichord to a Young Man, which shows what the bodice would look like. Pretty. Maybe I should go ahead and add the sleeves.

Either way I'm finishing this corset/bodice by the Fourth of July. That's six weeks. I can not stand how long the corselet took. That means no searching for special ribbons or fasteners, no getting sidetracked by travel, no dilly dallying. So while I'm patterning I ask you, To sleeve or not to sleeve? That is the question.

cotton lace and more foundations revealed

Remember the other projects I mentioned? Here's one of them.

That's the top edge of a reproduction of an antique, post Edwardian, corset that I patterned and sewed. I've written an article about it for Foundations Revealed that will be published this June. Yea.

It's also the first corset that I've ever put something purely decorative on. I'd been on the look out for the perfect cotton lace and found it in a little shop in Rome, Passamaneria per l'arredamento, that was packed floor to ceiling with the prettiest ribbons, lace, and trims. Everything was tempting, but I decided to purchase only the 1 meter of lace I needed. Now that I'm far from that shop I wish I had purchased more items. I'm suffering from non buyer's remorse.

what's the hold up?

I know. It's taking me forever to show the finished corselet. The loose ends have been tied, but I refuse to put it on until I buy a pair of stockings to wear with it. Otherwise I know it will ride up over my hips and look sloppy. So stockings are the hold up.

In the meantime, here is a picture of my most recent embroidery project.

This was what I worked on during my recent travels. I've had problems in the past with the satin stitch and the chain stitch. The way to solve that was to do satin and chain stitching. No need to avoid them any more.

darning

In the last post I mentioned I'd been working on other projects. Here's one of them.

A scarily close up shot of the first darning I've ever done. I had a request to repair some holes in a sweater and was told I could fix them however I liked. It doesn't look too bad, and I think it will look even better after it's worn and the ends of the thread fray a bit instead of being so blunt. There is another cross patching a hole on the back of the sweater. I wish I could claim the red cross idea as my own, I can't. I saw something similar a couple years ago, I believe in Selvedge Magazine, possibly the Scandinavian issue. In case anyone is curious, the sweater is wool, made in Greece, and I used DMC cotton perle number 5 thread.

I chose to work from the front because I wanted the work to show, but I can see how if one was skilled the stitches could disappear. Give me time.

stagnated corselet

The corselet has been hanging in the same spot, and is in the same condition, as it was five days ago.

I wish had an exciting reason as to why. Working on other projects just doesn't sound like a decent excuse. Because it's really not. But now that the other projects have been cleared I'll be dedicating myself to tying up all the those loose threads.