Finished chemise & renovated stays

I've finally finished my chemise. It's completely hand sewn with linen thread and all seams are flat felled. It felt like this one took for ever with all those long seams and all the lace. It turned out a bit on the short side, I blame it on the fact that I cut the pieces one evening when I was very tired. But I'm over all pleased with my result anyway. I think it's awfully cute and I love wearing it, the linen is so soft to the skin. I really hope that the fabric store will have this wonderful linen in stock again next summer because I totally need one more of this comfy garment!
Here it is:

I was originally planning to buy a white silk ribbon for the neck but noow i think I will go for a pink one instead because it looks so cute :)

And here are the "after" pictures of my stays. We start off with the front:

The very shiny synthetic organza ribbons will leave and some white silk ribbons will take their place when they arrive. I think my cleavege looks much better now, but my next pair of stays needs some adjustment of the shape of the neckline. I think it's a bit to wide beacuse the shoulder straps land a bit to far out on the shoulder. I think a bit more narrow neckline will help me a bit with bust lift too.

And here are the side wiew:

Not much to say here, the side seam hit my sides perfectly. And the armhole feels good, no chafeing since I moved the end position of the horisontal bones.

And finally the back, and the horror:

I admit it, I'm vain when it comes to lacings, I want them to lay exactly parallell and be bone straight. But since I've gained som much...body wisdom...my stays can't to that on me any more. Here you can also see that my shoulder straps base need to move in a couple of centimeters, so the armhole will fit me better. I also think that the waist line is a bit low right now. If it moves up I think the stays will fit more comfortably in the waist area.

But these pair has an acceptable fit so they'll have to do until I feel like making me a new pair.

My next project on the loong to do list is to make myself a pair of engagentes and fix my shoes. I need two quick fix projects before I start to wrestle with fitting my pet en l'air.

/L

Distractions

My stays are done and the day before yesterday I started flat felling the long gore seams on my chemise. But yesterday nothing got done because of this lovely fellow:

His name is Akilles and he's a 1,5 year old Rottweiler. He is going to live with us for a little over a week as a try out period and if everything goes well, he'll be a new family member.
Right now it feels like we've been invaded by a 50 kg tornado with a huge heart that loves everyone. He even cries when the cats don't want to play with him...

Tonight I have to work with my chemise. It must be in a wearable state on Sunday because I'm going to participate in a 18th century salon arranged by Gustaf Skål. The very awesome Isis Wardrobe has promised to lend me an outfit. I will bring my stays, pocket hoops and the chemise.

This weekend there is also a 18th century lecture weekend that I'm going to participate in. I will take classes is 18th century beatuy, a madames wardrobe and 18th century cooking.

Now my tea break is over, I better get back to work.

/L

The fabrics so far

The velvet fabric that will turn into a stomacher and cuffs is in the top of the picture, at the bottom we have the cotton damask for the jacket/gown and in the middle you can se a small piece of upholstery velvet that I will use for redressing the shoes.
The colors are pretty accurate, but all the fabrics looks more shiny in the photo than in real life and the white parts on the damask are much stronger in the picture.
Here are a close up of the damask (with very distorted colors):


We move on to yesterdays major fabric finds, 6 meters of fine quality, light weight linen that I got for 49 SEK/M! (that's about 6$/m).
In the top right corner are the chemise fabric, in the middle we have a (coming to be) petticoat and on the bottom are an old linen sheet made of a twill weave that I found for 75 SEk in a thrift store.

On this picture below I'm trying to show the transparency of the white linen fabric, thats my hand barely showing under it.


And now for the hard decision...which one of those should I go with for the jupe...
First we have the striped fabric, it looks like the one in the picture below but instead of the green stripe there are a light blue one and the fabric are not so dark as i appears here. (I borrowed this picture from Fuschia , go check out her blog, it is awesome!).


Then we have this lovely silk taffeta from ebay:


I have a really hard time with this...should I listen to my wallet or not?

/L

The master plan

So, all projects need a plan and here is mine.
To make a complete outfit I need these items:

Chemise - I have bought fabric, a sheer white linen. I just need to shrink wash it then I can start cutting and sewing. I will sew it all by hand, with linen thread and I think I will make flat felled seams so this garment will be durable and feel nice to the skin.

"Modesy skirt- My plan is to find some old linen sheets either on tradera (a swedish auction site) or in a thriftstore to use for this skirt. I've already found one sheet, but that one is already booked for lining of the jacket/gown and for my pocket.

A pair of stays - I have stays that I made as my exam work when I was in tailor school. Due to the time restriction for the exam project they are not completely hand sewn. I have to change the boning in them, the old ones made of reed are broken. (I still recommend reed as bonig though, they are extremely light, easy to work with and gives good support. But if you cant store your corset lying flat, the will brake as mine has due to moving house approximately 2-4 times a year for a five year period). More info about the work with the stays will come in a post later.

Pocket Hoops - I'm currently working on those, these are also partly machine sewn, I had to have one done quick so I could calculate yardage for petticoats. (I live in the countryside and don't go in to town so often so when I do, I want to hunt for fabric.

Pocket - I've will make one out of linen and embroider it with button hole silk. I have not deiced on a motif yet, but I'm would really like to find some kind of traditional regional motifs from Östergötland (= a region in Sweden). My grandmother who was a great crafts person was from there, and I would like to make my pocket in some kind of hommage to her.

Under petticoat(s) - I've already bought some light blue linen of the same quality as the one in my chemise. I will start with one petticoat and see if and need to make another one to hide the pocket hoops.

Petticoat (jupe) - I have not decied about what fabric to use for this one yet. I'm torn between a light blue silk taffeta that I've found on ebay or a striped upholstery fabric I saw at my local fabric shop. I would like to use the same fabric that is in the petticoat as frills and other decorations on the jacket/gown.

Jacket/Gown - I have a beautyful light blue cotton damask that I want to use, but I don't know If I have enogh of it to make a gown. I found in a thrift store a couple of years ago and it is cut in panels. So I have a 55 cm wide fabric that are 12,26 m long and are cut up in four panels. I see a lot of cutting and piecing coming my way in the future...

Stomacher - At the same time I found the damask I also found some light blue cotton velvet, this one was also a curtain but a very narrow one. I have a pice that are 38 cm wide and 4,98 m long.
My plan is to use this velvet as a base for the stomacher and decorate it with pieces of the damask and frame it in silver trim. I'm also planning to use the velvet for the cuffs of the/jacket gown.

I also need to find some decent shoes to redress, figure out how to make a pair of period stockings and garters and try to get some kind of hat. But they are later problems :)
Now we'll end this post and move on fore something more fun...Fabric pictures ;)

/L