First Fitting of the dresses :)

So i had my first fitting of Ellie, Esther and Lauras 18th century outfits. Unfortunatley i havent started ellies dress yet so there wasnt so much to try on for her, but it was great to see them all in the finished stays and take some photographs...

Ellie in her blue toile de jour stays.


Laura in her front opening pick stays..


Esther in her yellow silk stays...


Pinning lauras dress onto her for the first time. It Fitted really well :)


Esther, holding her dress on. I havent done the hooks and eyes down the front opening but it does fit at the front pretty perfectly.

Cant wait to see them on when they are all finished :)
And then finally, even though the dresses arent finished we played around doing a couple more photographs, heres a small preview, but please head over to my flickr account to see them all :)

My stays

So i made these a year or so ago but i realised that i never actually posted any photos of them because at the time i didnt have aproper shift type thing to wear underneath it. Anyway, just took these quickly this afternoon so they really arent that great, but i thought i would still post them :)
Sorry they arent great quality...

Bodice Toile

Okay, bodice toile Done.


The front,
ignore the turquoise vest etc that i am wearing underneath :)


And the back

I am really pleased with how this has turned out. I thought the front of the jacket was going to be too far apart, if that makes sense, but once i put it on on top of my corset i think it looks alright how it is. Also, obviously, when i cut out the real thing i will make it En fourreau, but i was concentrating on making the front of the jacket the right shape so i thought i would just keep the back simple, espcially as i wouldnt be making a skirt part for the toile. But yeh, mucho happy so far :)
Below is a photo of the buttons and lace that i arranged on the toile to see how it would look and i am very happy with the result.
Looks okay no?



So with the toile done and it looking as if everything is fitting corectly,time to start chopping away at the real fabric i think. Eeek.
Speaking of fabric, here is a quick snap of the fabric that i got for the underskirt/Stomacher. Like i said previously, i think the colour is brighter than on the real dress but the two tone fabric has the same grey/blue sheen as the actualy fabric so i think it should work okay.

So i finished my history coursework yesterday afternoon and i decided i would have an evening of sewing as a reward :) So i managed to get a fair bit done on my stays, sewed all the boning and then started putting it together. i am pretty happy with the way its looking at the minute. i was a bit worried the fabric would be too thick but i think it actually works well for it. The last time i made some stays i made them my dress size and they were slightly too loose, even when laced so that the back was fully together, so this time i made the size smaller because then i can tighten it with the lacings at the back and it will mean i can have it tighter or looser as i please.


The bottom flap things arent properly shaped yet and they havent been binded or anything. Not too far off finishing i dont think :)

Before the summer i have decided to make a new pair of Georgian
stays because my old ones arent very good and are a bit too big now.
I had a panel of fabric that i bought because it was really beautiful but i didnt know what to do with it because it was quite a thin panel that there wasnt enough of to make a dress or a jacket. So i have decided to use this fabric for my new stays.
Heres a photo of it all cut out



And heres a closeup of the jacquard flower weave;



It might take me a bit longer than usual to complete these because of work, revision etc but i will work on them in my breaks between owrk and hopefully get them finished before i break up for the summer, ready for the enw dresses i want to make.