Bernhardt Stays, Round #2, Finished!

The Bernhardt stays are finally done! The actual making did not take so long as the getting around to making, but I am glad they are finished - now I can move on to making a base pattern for a dress, This weekend I was lucky enough to have my wonderful photographer sister, Elizabeth Ann, in town! We braved the incredibly muggy Atlanta heat to snap some pictures of the finished stays.

These stays definitely provide excellent lift and separation. It is important that the straps be snug for this! Because there are no bones along the side-front of the corset, the tension of the strap is what provides any side-breast support. (My straps are actually a bit too long, so I am cheating in the above picture and tugging the strap tight with my opposite arm. You can see in the below-right picture that the straps are tied ALL the way tight against the top edge of the stays. There should be a gap there!) 

Despite taking a while to stitch, these were relatively easy to put together. The elements that took the longest time were the little hand-stitched elements, reenforcing stitches around the corners of the gussets and the eyelets.

My notes on this as a curvy gal... I have a bust-waist difference of 10", and a waist-hip difference of 12". This pattern still is awesome for this shape, but it means that the hip gussets need to be pretty wide, and need to be carefully sliced exactly to natural waist. Something to keep in mind is that as this pattern is expanded, the length from top CF to top CB expands at a much faster rate than the length around the waist (see illustration below). This suits small sizes and curvy (high bust-waist-hip differentials) shapes. It may not work as well for an apple or rectangle shaped body, because it creates such a distinctive cone shape from waist to top edge.

The busk is a paint-stirrer (classic DIY busk material) trimmed and sanded to remove all sharp edges. Hoping to get a fancy schmancy one for the next version of these stays.

They were a bit hastily made - the next pair I make will be handstitched and more carefully fitted, but I needed to just get them finished so that I could move on to a dress! All in all I still like them despite the flaws. I prefer perfectly smooth stays, without wrinkles - I'm not sure that is possible with this pattern (with so few bones) on my fluffy shape, although they may be smoother with a more sturdy fabric. Wrinkles and all, these stays are comfy! I'm looking forward to wearing it through an event to see how they hold up.

Things I would do differently next time:

• Handstitch the whole thing. This provides better control over gusset insertion - I don't love the ripples caused by my machine stitching through 9 layers of fabric around each gusset. 
• Select a lining that is as inflexible as the outer fabric. The lining for this sample ended up having a lot more "give" and slight stretchiness, which results in internal wrinkles that you can see through the outer layer. 
• Add an extra inch of fabric at center back. The gap can actually be about an inch closer than it ended up being in photos, but I'd like just a little more coverage and a little less lacing gap. 

Since this was begun LONG ago as a Historical Sew Fortnightly (2014) challenge, "Under It All",  I'll wrap it up with the same deets!

What the item is: Stays modeled after direction by J. S. Bernhardt, c. 1810-11.

Challenge #4, Under It All: this fits the challenge because it is a foundation! It goes under any outer clothing of the era.

Fabric: three layers of plain woven cotton - the top two layers are fairly fine and tight, the inner layer is a slightly looser weave. I thought it was coutil, but was clearly wrong. Next time I will use the same fabric for the interior and exterior, or a tightly woven linen for the interior.

Pattern: Enlarged from J. S. Bernhardt's sewing manual, which I got from Sabine of Kleidung um 1800.

Year: 1810-11

Notions: a length of cord for lacing, and a paint-stirrer for the busk.

How historically accurate is it? the shapes are quite accurate. The actual stitching and fabric, not so much. I'd give it an 80%.

Hours to complete: of actual sewing? Probably 50 or so, most of which was occupied with the eyelets and gusset reinforcement.

First worn: for this photoshoot! Hoping to wear it to the Louisville, KY Jane Austen Festival in a couple weeks.

J.S. Bernhardt Stays - Part 3 - The Details

I may be getting a little ahead of myself, because I haven't even cut out my final fabric yet, but I have spent much of today (another snow day!!) researching finishing details. Lots of little things add up to make an accurate finished product, and I want to make this corset as accurate as I can with my present resources.

There are four things I need to check and confirm to finish off my corset: 

• What color/quality thread should I use? This one was fairly easy to figure out - most of the extant examples that I have seen use matching or very tonal (close to matching) sew thread. My stays are going to be ivory/cream-coloured, so my safest bet is an easy match. However... that being said, I kind of think that matching is boring. The plan for this corset now is to stitch it up with blue/green/pink silk thread! 
• Sabine mentions here that J.C. Hüttner's Englische Miscellen mentions light grey silk thread. The book is available on Google Books, but it is entirely in German, so I am trusting her judgement on this one. 

• Almost all of the extant stays/corsets that I looked at (in a range between 1790 and 1830) are listed by the museum websites as stitched with silk thread, so that firmly establishes my thread quality.

• What type of boning/reinforcement should I use? Unfortunately (actually, fortunately, save the whales and all that), I don't have access to baleen. So... cable ties to the rescue! This is my least authentic material, but I'm not going to source real baleen, and while this German plastic boning has been reputed to be a good substitute, I have a package of cable ties in a drawer in my sewing room. How then should I place the boning? 
• The corset below (c. 1820-30) has just cording in the back to reinforce the lacing. I don't really like how wobbly and bumpy that allows the back to be when the stays are laced up, so I would prefer to not go with that method. 

Corset, ca. 1820-1830, Kent State collections 1995.017.1349

• Boning flanking the lacing holes is mentioned in Hüttner's Englische Miscellen, and can be seen in many of the examples I reviewed between1790 and 1830. 

Stays, ca. 1790, V&A museum no. T.237-1983



Corset, ca. 1825-35, V&A museum no. T.27-1948



• If these stays seem too plain to me, I might cord them a bit. I found a great example at the MET (can you tell this is my fave museum? All those zoom-able photos!) that shows a bit of the interior-back. You can see what looks like wool yarn, poking out of the cording channels. This is exactly how trapunto is done - you have to leave those little end-loops pocking out to provide some ease to the stuffing. 

Corset, ca. 1810s-20s, MET accession no. 1970.103.5

• How should I finish the edges of the stays? Do I bind with self-fabric bias binding? What about twill tape? Or just turning the edges under and butting them against the lining? I found examples of all of these methods.
• Twill tape: this seemed to be really common 1820-1840. The tape was usually DTM (dyed-to-match, meaning the same color as the body fabric), but I found a very pretty example with contrasting twill tape binding at the MET (below-left). I also have seen this on older, transitional stays (below-right). 

Corset, ca. 1815-25, MET accession no. 2009.300.3229
Note that the same twill tape as the binding
is used to secure the busk in its channel.

 Stays, ca. late 18th cent., MET accession no. C.I.41.94
This tape is probably originally DTM.

• Self-fabric binding: this method was pretty common on the whole range of stays/corsets that I looked at. Sometimes the binding appeared to be cut on the bias, but sometimes it was clearly cut on the straight grain (nightmare for curves!) 

• Faced edges: facing the edges with the lining (or just turning the fabric over the lining to finish) was definitely not the most common method of finishing the neck and hem edges, but I saw it on a few corsets. I don't think I'll go with this method, too much of a pain to press all the edges under before whipping the lining to them. 

Corset, ca. 1811, MET accession no. X.51.4.2
This is one of only two corsets that I observed with that interesting button-flap securing the busk.

• What technique should I use for the lacing holes? Spiral lacing, I think. The Laced Angel made a great spreadsheet on Romantic Era (1820-35ish) corsets, and her research indicates that spiral-lacing and crisscross-lacing were pretty common at least by those dates. However, spiral-lacing is a bit older technique, and I haven't tried it yet, so I'd like to give it a go. Below you can see an example of both techniques, and Jen of Festive Attyre explains spiral lacing here. 

Corset, ca. 1811, MET accession number X.51.4.2
See how the lacing holes are all off-balance?
With holes closer-together at the top and bottom?
That indicates spiral lacing. 



Corset, ca. 1840s, MET accession no. C.I.42.74.12

The lacing holes on this example are exactly symmetrical,
indicating crisscross-lacing (not the technical term.)




• On the corsets I reviewed I saw a lot of bone eyelets, a good many stitched eyelets, and zero metal eyelets. Metal eyelets were more or less invented in 1827 (ref. Corsets and Crinolines, by Norah Waugh), so they definitely wouldn't have been around in 1810-15. I don't presently know of a resource for bone eyelets, or I would totally go with those (50x less stitching to be done!). Alas, I'll have to stitch them (unless any of my kind readers can point me in the direction of a bone eyelet supplier! I have been checking out bone ear gauges, but they don't have a proper lip under the eyelet to keep the fabric tucked under).

Now I am off to finally cut out and baste up my new stays in final fabric. I leave you with a sketch of possible cording patterns (nothing super period-correct, just a product of doodling away while watching Sherlock, which is awesome.) 

J.S. Bernhardt Stays - Part 2

Monday night, I actually managed to  modify my mock-up to narrow all the gussets! (Two days of sewing in a row, this is an accomplishment for me. Then it completely stopped for the week, of course.)

I decided that I really did want to raise the bust gussets by 0.5", so I stitched up the gusset slits by 0.5" (if you peer closely at the picture on the left, below, you can see my puckery seam stitching up the bottom of the gusset.) I also raised made the gusset significantly smaller, taking out a half inch in width and even more than that at the top edge. The rounded "almond" shape helps the gusset form a nice, rounded cup shape when stitched into the stays.

 For the hip gussets, I decided to take 1.25" out of the centre of the big gusset, and 0.75" out of the little gusset. To do that, I just folded them down the center and pinned,  and then I stitched out the excess like darts. 

Then, I tried it on again. Below you can see the same pose as last pose, for a fit comparison. My breasts are definitely lifted a little better, and there is no excess fabric in the gussets. The hips fit much more snugly, although I could probably take out a smidge more, as Sabine noted that the corset will stretch a bit after being worn on a warm body - every corset does this, but a corset on the bias probably does this a little bit more. 

The slightly less interesting photo on the left, below, also provides a nice comparison to the front view in the last post.  I think my bustline is significantly raised, but I have a hard time seeing it in this picture. Mostly because my waist is short, so I just look a little stumpy overall from this angle. But the other photos clearly indicate an accurate shape, so I am going to keep the bust gussets as they are. 

In the back, you can see I am still getting some unsightly drag lines from the side-back hip gusset, and the centre-back (CB) lacing. I think that  lowering the highest point of that gusset may help with this problem - I'm just going to make that revision in my final fabric.

While I was wearing the corset, I blindly stabbed at the bottom hem with a pencil (as you can see from my indiscriminate marks below), and thereby determined some sort of shape to the bottom edge. This is probably the most flexible aspect of the corset pattern - I could make the bottom hem whatever shape I please. The red line indicates which shape I please, this time around. 

That done, I just measured out what was to be removed from the corset and chopped it off of my gusset pattern pieces. 

My pattern is ready, time to cut fabric, woohoo! 

 

HSF Challenge #4: Under It All - J.S. Bernhardt Stays, c. 1810-11

As I have reduced my aim for the HSF 2014 to cover only twelve projects (at least), instead of twenty-four, I am skipping around a little bit with the challenges, picking and choosing the ones that I like. Technically, if I am doing the odd-numbered challenges, I should be working on the #3: Pink challenge. However, I have a total of two pieces of pink fabric in my stash, and neither of them are period-accurate. Because I don't love pink, I don't particularly want to go buy pink fabric for a pink project. If something pops up when I am next fabric shopping, I might re-think this challenge. But for now, I am choosing instead to work on Challenge #4: Under It All.

My current stays are too small, and not super accurate. The lower-back gussets are not cut high enough for the lovehandles I've acquired in the past few years, so they cause a little bit of lower-back pain after wearing for a while. The bust gussets are just plain too small, and a set a little too closely together in the front for a proper silhouette. To top it off, there is zero lacing gap in the back (I would prefer a 2"- 4" gap). I made these when I was sixteen, and I still love them for the purpose they served at the time, but I need an upgrade. My body has changed shape and I have learned a bit more about this era, and it is time to reflect these changes in a new set of undergarments!

I need to make a simple pair of stays, due to time constraints for this project (my last pair took many, many hours of cording and embroidery). Perhaps eventually I will cord/embroider my new pair, but I first need to be able to whip up a wearable foundation! Frills and furbelows come after.

At first, I was torn between making short stays and long stays - the only extant short stays I have seen have been transitional stays c. 1790s (Sabine of Kleidung um 1800 addresses this in a well-researched post here, noting that the short stays we see post-Transition appear to be for certain occasions such as travel, or informal morning/evening wear). I wanted slightly later stays, and was thinking about making those short "travel" stays, because short stays are just easier to wear.

And then, lo, I came across Sabine's amazing post (should really be called an article or presentation, it is so in-depth) about J.S. Bernhardt's patterns for short stays. Apparently these stays are designed so as to healthily embrace the body, without excess of boning, and provide decent support.

~angels sing~

This is exactly what I need! Sabine already put the patterns on grids for scaling, and she advises how to measure to scale up for your own size. Check out this post and read, read, read, because it is amazing and so helpful. Thanks to Sabine for her generosity in sharing all of this information and effort with the rest of us!

Following her instructions, I took the pattern below, measured myself, and scaled.

I placed a ruler in front of my shoulder to find the correct point to measure from to get my scale multiplier. My personal measurement was 23cm from the ruler around to the centre of my back. I rounded this down to 22.75cm, so that it divided by 7 into a nice, simple 3.25cm. I then scaled up the pattern so that each square = 3.25cm. Then I printed this out in two parts on 11"x17" paper and taped the pattern together.

It is very interesting to me that this pattern is cut on the bias. I haven't yet observed an extant example that is cut on the bias, but it makes perfect sense in order to hug the figure. I decided to just cut mine on a bias fold, instead of putting a seam down the centre. I might switch that up on the final piece, because the seam probably adds a little structure to the stays.

I added an inch to the CB edge, which ended up being pretty
unnecessary. Better to cut off extra than not have enough, though!

To measure out my gussets (because the ones on the original pattern are pretty tiny and were not going to make it across my girth), I cut the slits for the gussets and then held the corset up against myself and measured across the gaps created at slit. Check out my super-scientific method for patterning gussets:

I literally drew a slice of pie with a measuring tape
across the top indicating how wide the gusset should be.

Fast-forward to the completed mock-up! I don't have any in-progress pictures because, well, there wasn't much to progress. I folded under the CB edges to create boning channels, and I hastily stitched a strip of fabric down the CF to hold my busk. Then I mentally patted myself on the back for actually including boning channels (because I HATE making boning channels on mock-ups, it always seems so pointless. It is, in reality, the opposite of pointless, but when I always end up chucking the mock-up, it seems excessive.) Finally, I pinned and stitched all six of the gussets. Voila, mock-up finished.

I had no lacing tape, so I used eyelet lace from my stash.

Time for the first try-on! The eyelet lace works in a pinch, but I will probably have to get lacing strips to get a more even back closure on future corset mock-ups. For this project, it worked, and I know what I need to do to modify the pattern before cutting final fabric.

UBER-curvy! Did not expect that. 

So... it was a bit curvalicious on me. That was unexpected, considering all the mashing and squashing my other stays have been doing. I kind of like it!

Things that are Right about this so far: 

• it is curvy - my body is curvy, so that is kind of great. I am not large, but I am short-waisted and have wide hips, which I would prefer to embrace rather than straight-jacket.
• it is short - refer to afore-mentioned short waist. No more boning digging into my thighs when I sit! 
• my breasts are shoved up and out - the ideal silhouette. I didn't think that one gusset would cut it (I am a 34D), but it sure does work out! The singular gusset actually helps with the sideways persuasion of the breasts. I might raise the gussets by 1/2" to get a smidgen more lift - should I? Or are they high enough? 
• I love where the straps are located - they are far out on each side in the front, which is excellent for those wide Regency necklines, and they meet at a perfect place on the back (I like how the straps join the back at an angle, rather than attaching to the horizontal top edge.)

Things that are Wrong about this mock-up:

• the bust gussets are a smidgen too wide at the top - I think I will round out the edges of the gussets a little bit, so they are not a perfect triangle, and thereby draw in the top corners a bit.
• I need to re-shape the bottom edge, for sure - that widest gusset curves too low. 
• both hip gussets are a bit too wide - I think I need to take 1/2"from the little one, and 1" from the big one. 
• I may need to remove a smidge off the upper back opening - I usually have problems with lacing gaps at the top, where they close up too much. That will throw off the straight-grain, though, hopefully that is not a big problem... 

My bustline seems a bit low in this image... have
to decide whether to raise the gussets!

Too much fabric going on down there. 

The hip gussets come up a little high on my back
but there are worse evils. I think I will leave them.

I think I am ready to move on to fabric! I am in love with this pattern.