An edwardian blouse

I'm making progress on my Edwardian outfit, albeit a bit too slow, but this upcoming weekend I hope I'll have the corset ad the corset cover in wearable condition. 

The corset have been a real hassle, I've lost count on how many times I've ripped out the boning channels on the back pieces. But today I've finally figured out in which order to sew them so hopefully the rest of the sewing progress will go better. I hope I will ha a corset to show you on Sunday :)

Now on to the subject of this blog post, the blouse.

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

Shoe update...

I've decided not to redress my shoes. I put my damask beside the shoes today outdoors in the sunlight and the light blue and the dark burgundy/maroon looked great together!
So my new plan is to make removable lapels and sew a removable cover for the straps that also covers the buttons. Then I can add a fancy buckle to the cover and voila, 18th century looking shoes :D

I made a quick try in some scrap fabric this afternoon and it looked pretty good. So tomorrow I will go into town and see if I can find some nice buckles and a good fabric for this little project. I have a upholstery velvet that almost match but I will give the fabrics stores in Uppsala a fair chanche before I cut the velvet.

I feel so clever now :P

I think I saw buckles similar to these in a craft store and I think they would look fabulous on my shoes.


I've also started on my under petticoat today. I'm sewing it by hand with white lined thread. I willl use "reinforced runnning stitch" i.e a running stitch wich a occasional back stitch. I read about this technique in "Kvinnligt mode under två sekel" and according to that book this was a coomon method for seams that don't take any strain.

/L