Almost two years ago I stopped buying clothes--
any clothes.
I always wanted to be a person who wore homemade clothing, but I
realized it was never going to happen because it's just too easy to go out and
buy what you need. To reach the level of professionalism I wanted in my sewing
would require practice, and I was never going to get that practice unless I set
a strict rule and stuck to it. However there is one genre of
clothing that is almost impossible to sew for yourself:
athletic wear.
Okay fine--you can make it-- but modern athletic wear is constructed
on highly complex machinery using specialized elasticized materials. Any
attempt to replicate that is just not going to be the same.
This has gotten me thinking about historical solutions, and for a while now
I've wanted to try adapting an 18th century stay pattern into something
functional as a modern sports bra. For me this project is the essence of
FOR SCIENCE! On the scale of clever to dumb I do not
know where this idea falls, but, I'm never going to find out if I don't try it.
Making the pattern was not as difficult as you think. I started out with the
pattern that I already altered to my measurements for the 18th century stays
pattern. The only reason I'm using this pattern
is because I already know how it fits me, but you could use pretty much any 18th
century stays pattern. On all of the pieces I marked a line
about an inch above the natural waist. To make a mock-up I folded the bottom
half of each pattern piece out of the way,
and traced them onto a thick cotton canvas. I like canvas for stay mockups,
because I don't think you need to bone them in order to get a good idea of the
shape. Once I had cut them out, I pinned them together and sewed along the traced
markings.
And then, instead of boning these seams, I'm just going to open them and then use
a zigzag stitch to flatten them. One mock-up trick is that I have a very long
strip of decorative trim with eyelets in it, and I use it for all of my mock-ups. I
just sew one end to each side of the back and use it to lace up. And then when
I'm done with that mock-up, I just rip it off and save it for the next one. For
this mock-up I also cut a couple of very wide strips, because I was planning on
sewing the straps as one piece with the body of the stays, and I wanted to get an
exact fit. Okay, so here are the finished pattern
pieces overlaid on the original pattern pieces,
and you can see the three back pieces are virtually identical. They just
end at that waistline that I drew. But the front piece has changed
quite a bit--not not that much though--I added another seam, so there's a whole
nother side panel. But the main difference is just at this
top edge. I raised the neckline by about an inch,
and then I drew it up into the beginning of the strap.
And that was really all it took, like, this was not that difficult of a pattern
to make. Then of course here is the strap, and I have the exact angle at which it
connects at the back. I thought I would do gussets to open up
a little bit more bust room, but then when I was trying on the mock-up I
realized that I didn't really need it, so I just
decided to go with the flat 18th century shape. So yeah, they're still on my
pattern, even though I didn't end up using them.
For the outer layer of fabric I'll be using this charcoal gray linen.
For the binding I'll be using this natural linen, which you might notice
this is the same combination I made for the athletic shorts earlier this summer.
For the interlining, I'll be using this heavyweight linen canvas.
And for the lining I'll be using this lightweight white shift linen. The canvas
came from Burnley & Trowbridge. This came from Joann's, and these two
probably came from Joann's or Hancock's. In the machine I'll be using this Coats &
Clark cotton quilting thread, and then for any hand stitching I'll be
using this linen thread from Burnley & Trowbridge.
For boning I'll be using this standard plastic boning, not because it's actually
good, but because once upon a time I accidentally bought a gross (144 yards), and now I'll
never be rid of it. However for the curved bust rail piece I'll be using this
spiral steel.
And here they all are. All of the panels basted together,
and I was originally planning on making the straps as one piece, but the reason I
changed my mind was because I was afraid that, since it was kind of cut on an
angle, it would not be straight-of-grain, and it
would stretch out instead of being nice and solid.
And it just now occurred to me that I could have left the outer strap as one
piece, and just seamed together the inner strap and
cut *that* on the straight-of-grain, which could have done the job.
But you know, things to remember for next time.
All right. Let's see what seams it seems we can seam. That's called a polyptoton,
by the way.
Good morning once again. So last night I ironed open those seams,
then I sewed them open to make the boning casing on one side.
But in this morning light I have decided I don't like that, so I think that I'm
going to seam-rip this side, and then I'm going to sew them folded
over, and then just sew on one side. I feel like that'll be
structurally stronger.
Okay that is done, and I am much happier with these boning channels. I think they
look a lot nicer. I still left the middle blank because I
haven't quite decided what I'm going to do with the gussets yet.
I think what I'm going to do is go ahead and do my eyelets, so that I can try it
on and make a decision on this.
Okay so this is where we're at right now, and I think that I am actually going to
skip doing the gussets, and just do all of the boning and
stiffening. And, the thing is, these are not very tight. I
have them pretty loosely laced on right now. They're very comfortable.
Other than the itchy linen canvas that I haven't
lined yet. And also the straps fit me pretty precisely, and I think that I'm
going to go ahead and just sew them down. I do not think I'm going to add any kind
of adjustable closure. I will sew them down
kind of last, so that they could still be
unstitched and restitched pretty easily. I think that
this, for a pretty practical daily wear piece, could work
just fine.
Okay it's starting to come together pretty quickly now, and I'm going to
start attaching the bias tape, which is left over from when I made the shorts,
and inserting the boning, all of which will be plastic,
except for the bust rail here which will be stainless steel...
what is that called...
the bendy kind
ohhh...
All right. Here's where we're up to now, and there are only a few things left.
I need to fold these down and tack them in place.
I need to make and sew in the lining, and I'm going to make a
placket that stitches in right here, and I'm losing steam so I will tell you
about that in the future when I'm editing the video.
I talked about this bust panel a little bit when I did my silhouette video, but
in case you didn't see that, basically one of the things I was
experimenting with on this set of stays, is I wanted to try and make a pair that
I could wear without a shift underneath, and the one function of a shift that I
just could not do without was the bust control portion.
So for this pair of stays I wanted to build in a gathered section at the
neckline that could fulfill that function.
At first I made a few different attempts at an overly complicated, and ultimately
unsuccessful pattern. But then I found a scrap that was actually a leftover cut-
out neckline from a shift, and I was like "Hey, that's perfect."
To make this bust panel, I ironed over the top edge for a hem, but before I stitched
in the hem, at the center front I added two small
eyelets for a drawstring. Then I finished off that hem,
and I threaded it with an eighth of an inch wide cotton tape. Since I was
basically making this pattern up, I didn't know how wide the panel needed to
be. So I pinned the corners of it about
where I wanted the top edge to sit. I gathered it up and then I tried it on.
While trying it on I adjusted the gathers and kind of loosely pinned them
in place. And then I made markings, feeling for
where the edge of the stays met the white.
After that I unpinned it and ungathered it so I could see the markings laid flat.
I evened out the line, and then trimmed the excess down to about half an inch
past the blue. And then I ran a gathering stitch along
the bottom, about a quarter of an inch away from the edge.
I drew in the gathers, evened them out, and pinned them in place.
I don't know what this stitch is called, but then I took these zigzagging
stitches over top of the gathers. And now that the
bust panel was held in pretty securely, I could go tack down the straps.
I did this using a small, strong back- stitch. First I did a row at the very
base of the bias tape, then I did another row at the top,
down to just the lining. And for the body of it, I'm going to use the same white
linen But for the straps, in order to minimize bulk, I'm going to use this
cotton twill tape.
All right, that's ready to stitch down. And I didn't bother filming any of it
because it's almost 11, and I want to finish it tonight.