Miss Hancock Models Her New Stays

Upon completing the baby stays, Miss Hancock happily modeled them. While she was not a fan of holding still while they were laced up (what 15 month old wants to hold still?) she quickly adapted and had little trouble performing her favorite activities... 

 Like rearranging mommy's spoons...

 ...and banging them on the floor.

 

She could crawl just fine. 

 

 And she quickly partook in her other favorite dining room activity -- organizing the wooden bowls.

 The only thing she somewhat struggled with was squatting and standing up. But don't we all have those issues when wearing stays? 

Mrs. Hancock's Completed Baby Stays

As you may remember, I have been struggling with the baby stays project. My last conflict centered around the appropriate fashion fabric (I had used green linen which I learned isn't an appropriate color).

So I removed the green linen...

...and choose Burnley & Trowbirdge's cinnamon camlet. It's a more appropriate weight (the green linen was a little sheer) and a more appropriate color.

I attached the new fashion fabric...

...and whip stitched the panels together.

I then bought an awl and marked where each eyelet should go.

Punching the eyelet holes was much easier than I had antiticapted thanks to my new tool. (Which much be the best $6 I ever spent!) 

For making the eyelets, I basically had to make two eyelets for each hole--one on the front and one inside.

I then added a scrap of printed cotton on the center front (to create a little cushion for comfort)...

...and laced them up with some cotton tape.

The shape of this pair of stays was rather boxy. I bent the pasteboard so it would better reflect a rounded body shape and would be more of a natural fit for Miss Hancock.

Up next - my little one will model her first pair of stays!

Mrs. Hancock’s Baby Stays: Finding Fashion Fabric

As you may remember from my last post, the baby stays need fashion fabric. The wool I had intended to use was a bit too bulky, so I searched my scrap stash (that is, fabrics leftover from previous projects) and I decided to use a scrap of dull green linen because:

a) I have plenty of it.

b) It’s a fairly lightweight fabric so it should work well for the summer.

In a quick scan of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's collections I found this example: 

Women's stays, mid 18th century Accession Number 1903-135
The fashion fabric is a glazed wool that is the same kind of green as my fabric.

And I found this...

Child's stays, c.1770-1790 Accession Number  1988-15-1
The fashion fabric is a gold coarse, plain weave linen. 

If you consider that the green lady's stays are the same color as my fabric, and the child's stays are the same type of fabric that I have on hand, it would seem sufficient to use my dull green linen, right?

So I did.

I covered the outer part of the stays...

I had to piece the fabric together at the bottom front since the fabric was a little too short.

I whip stitched the fabric to the lining.

And whip stitched each panel together. 

And I thought that they were almost complete, that I just needed to make the eyelets. 

However, Mrs. Peabody recently blogged in her post TextileThoughts about ceasing to use linen colors that are not documented, such as green.

This is a bummer because:

a)      I had thought that the project was nearly complete.

b)      I made a petticoat with this linen that I'll have to retire. And I used a scrap to line my absolutely favorite accessory, my needlework bag, which will have to take apart and redo. : (

Sew. Does it seem too much of a stretch to use green linen for baby stays? Or should I snip it off and start over? 

Mrs. Hancock's Baby Stays, Part One

I've been working on creating a small pair of stays for my little one. (If you are of the mindset that this is wrong to do to a child and that I must be an evil mother, I encourage you to learn a bit more about my baby stays before jumping to conclusions.)

I'm modeling my baby stays after the baby stays in Colonial Williamsburg's collections (with some help thanks to Mrs. Peabody), and referring to photos of the baby stays that the Margaret Hunter Milliner's Shop created from the same set. (The photos can be found on the MHM's facebook page.)

For supplies:  I need pasteboard, a few feet of reed for the boning, fabric scraps and some heavy linen thread.

I started by tracing my pattern, created from the baby stays that Mrs. Peabody had made, onto a sheet of pasteboard. After cutting out four pieces...

...I went through the dreadful process of making large slightly sloppy stitches to attach the reed to the pasteboard. I had thought I could use running stitches for this part to spare my fingertips (I'm not a fan of thimbles), but that wouldn't hold the reed in place as it kept slipping around. So I had to backstitch the reed. By the time this process was complete, my fingers looked like the header image from our friend Kristin's blog, Stuck in the 18th Century. (If this set of stays doesn't fit her by next summer, I will be tempted to research 18th century glue receipts to try and justify gluing the reed to the pasteboard.)

From there, I used a scrap of striped linen to cover the pasteboard and act as the lining.

I then grabbed some wool for the fashion fabric, but as I tried folding it I realized that it was too bulky and probably wouldn't be comfortable to wear.

Time to dig through my fabric stash and find another scrap for the fashion fabric!