Felicity is helping me with the evil, awful ill-begotten silver stays. Well, ‘helping’ is stretching it a bit. She’s sitting on my lap, looking adorable and being cuddly and fluffy, while I try to sew seams over her without disturbing her.
I finished my chemise a la reine well over a year ago, and you know what? I have never worn the completed garment myself. Not once. It’s been on quite a few models, but it’s never been on me! How is that possible!?! Just too busy I guess, and no good excuse to wear it. Last Thursday I finally had the perfect excuse; I gave a talk to the Wellington Quilters Guild on Marie Antoinette and the chemise a la reine (provocatively titled ‘The Queen’s Underwear: How Marie Antoinette’s Un-dress Caused a Revolution’ – because a catchy title is always a good thing) and of course I needed to wear the chemise to make the talk come to life. At the last minute fate tried to conspire against me to force me to get a model for the talk. I was a bridesmaid on Sat and had to schedule a haircut and style before the wedding, and when was the only appointment I could get? That’s right – right before my talk. Eeeek! No point …
Some time ago, I decided I needed another pair of stays, and started on a set. And they’ve been nothing but trouble since then. They are almost making #4 on the list of evil things. First there was the fabric. I bought a bunch of linen with a gilded finish in a fabric sale, because it was soooo pretty, and I’m a magpie. Linen is a great fabric for stays, right? And who doesn’t want a pair of gilded stays? Linen is not a great fabric for stays if it warps. And gilded linen is an even worse choice if the minute you iron it, the gilded finish comes off, leaving you with plain, boring, ecru linen. But I didn’t even get far enough into the stays to find these things out before it gave me problems, because it turns out that gilded linen is actually really, really hard to match for a lining. So I finally settled for black, because it was really the only thing I had that didn’t look hideous with it. …
