Regency Stays

On Saturday, I finished up my paper mock-up of my Regency Stays, so yesterday, I cut it all out in my mockup fabric. Today, I sewed it together, and it fit almost perfectly. I think I'm going to put the placement of the bust gussets slightly closer to the CF, like in the original pattern, but that's the only change I need to make. And of course, now that I ordered the 18" ruler, it looks like all I need is a 15" busk anyway.

I started cutting out my cotton twill today, and hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to finish my cutting and sew it all together! Of course, I still have to buy boning and cording, so I'm definitely not finishing this anytime soon!

In other news, either Weebly fixed their upload settings, or my internet is running faster (knock on wood), because I was able to upload some new (read, from like 2 yrs ago through now) pictures to my website! I haven't had time to do descriptions yet, but I've uploaded new pictures to my 17th and 18th c pages.

Cording Help!

I went all over looking for cording for the Regency stays today. I was hoping to find some 1/8" hemp cording, like in jennylafleur's tutorial. I found 1/8" poly cording, but nothing else in that size (everything else, in both cotton and hemp was either very thin beading cording, or about 1/4" thick, including what I've found online). I wound up buying some jute cording, and playing around with it, but I'm worried it's going to be too thick. Here's a picture, with my sanded down busk ruler and fingers for scale.



Has anyone used jute before? And/or, if you've made Regency stays, what kind of cording did you use (and where did you find it!)?




Because I was messing with finding (or trying to find) cording today, all I managed to do was cut out the rest of the pieces. Though I did also run a bunch of other errands. And I bought a bike! I'm so excited for it to arrive. The bike shop said I should have it by next Tuesday.