I always get a bit gushy about how amazing the pattern testers for Scroop Patterns are (with good reason), but the testers for the Augusta Stays deserve an extra round of credit.

The Augusta Stays are by far the most ambitious pattern I’ve ever attempted, and they took Virgil’s Fine Goods and I easily 4x as long as any other pattern.

An ambitious pattern for the maker means an ambitious pattern for testers. Stays are no small undertaking at any time. We’re incredibly grateful for the wonderful sewers who were willing to check a new pattern, and to work with it when it still had rough bits to be smoothed off.

Thanks to the testers, the Augusta Stays are a much better pattern. Their input helped us to refine the fit of the stays, and make the instructions clearer and easier to use.

And the testers made some beautiful stays. I’m very envious of all of them! They are a little different than the final pattern that we released. Some of the testers tried slightly different materials and techniques than those recommended in the pattern, which allowed us to see how they worked, and how feasible they are.

Here are the tester makes!

Alex of @kasukiswelt and Steinchenwerkelt

Yellow was a major theme amongst the Augusta testers. Obviously I’m a fan! Alex made the View A Historical stays, in size 44, Curvy, in gorgeous butter yellow. Her binding is so beautiful!

Katie of @diystopia

We gave the Augusta testers the option to combine views. Katie made the View A Historical stays, with machine stitched channels to speed up the process, in size 34, Straight. Isn’t the result lovely? The blue grey she chose is so elegant.

Jessica of @jessicajquirk

I always learn interesting things asking for testers. One of the things I learned with the Augusta Stays is how many amazing historical sewers there are in Indiana. We couldn’t use all of them because we need testers from all over the world, but it was fantastic to have Jessica as a tester. She made the View B Theatrical stays in Size 36, Curvy. And in another wonderful shade of yellow, which goes beautifully with her sunflower background…

Jessica used cable ties instead of synthetic whalebone for her stays – to make this work you just need to make the boning channels a little wider to accomodate the different thickness.

Cait of @willoughbyandrose and Willoughby & Rose on etsy

You’ve already seen Cait’s stays, because I got to use her as a pattern model, but she was officially part of the testing group. She made View A, Historical, in Size 46, Curvy. Her fabric is a fine wool twill from Burnley and Trowbridge.

Cait could have gone up a size, but prefers a wider lacing gap. She also made a couple of other alterations based on her stay preferences: adding reinforcing tape to the back lacing, and using cane instead of synthetic whalebone. If you’re experienced in working with cane, this is an easy adaptation to make to the pattern.

Eloise of @eloise_faith_gladrags and Linen and Lining

Eloise decided to do the View A, Historical, with all the bells and whistles. She cut a size 34, Straight, as she wanted her stays to lace completely closed.

She bound her stays in leather – this is another thing that is easy to add to the Augusta Stays if you know how to do leather stay binding.

Molly of @avantgarbe_ and Avant-garbe.com

And finally, for the last one, something a little bit different. Molly hadn’t quite finished her Augusta Stays at Costume College, and she had a day when she needed to have her hair curled for the evening event, so she turned the two into an awesomely wacky outfit! Molly made View A, Historical in size 36, Straight, graded out to a 38 at the waist. She opted for shorter front lacing. I love this and can’t wait to see them fully finished!

Thank you to all the awesome testers! We are so grateful for your input!

Buy the Augusta Stays Pattern Here