All posts tagged: 1770s

Rate the Dress: Summer of 1778

Despite the possible oddness and uncomfortableness of a boned skirt, and not everyone getting the Japanese influence (it was the best sort of influence – very subtle, most Japanese in that respect, among others!) most of you soundly approved of last week’s green party frock, and it rated a perfect 9 out of 10. You’ve already seen this fashion plate featuring a very summery yellow and lilac frock of 1778 in my post on sabot sleeves, but I thought it deserved a closer look. The fashion plate describes the dress as (roughly – my French is pretty bad) A Circassienne dress in the new style, of gauze in a sulphur colour, with trim in lilac gauze.  The flounce trim is in the same colour as the dress, as is the bottom of the sabot.  The whole thing trimmed in lilac and purple, even to the headdress What do you think?  Do you like yellow and purple, or is the whole thing a bit twee, with all its pastels and ruffles and bows and polonaised skirts? …

Finished project: the very dreadful silver stays

Well, for better or worse the silver stays of doom are finally done. They continued their inclination to bad luck through the last few steps.  As I was working the eyelets they got sparkling apple juice splashed on them.  Luckily it didn’t stain the linen, but liquid is very bad for kid leather, so I think I’m going to have to replace part of the binding at some point. And then, after all the fuss about loosing the shoulder straps and having to cut a new pair, once I got all the eyelets worked and was finally able to try the thing, on the shoulder straps just didn’t work very well.  So all that  perfect, painstaking hand stitching got unpicked, the back got cut down just a little and I now have strapless stays. Without the shoulder straps tying in pretty bows in front, the front has little visual interest, so I felt the need to lace it with fancy ribbon.  Of course, this means I can only unlace it via the back, which means …

These are the stays that never end

I’m still working on my ill-begotten silver stays.  They are not moving very fast, partly because I haven’t had a lot of free time, but mostly because they are cursed. Every time I take them somewhere intending to work on them I find I have missed something important:  the kid leather binding, my awl for doing the lacing holes, the thread for the lacing holes, the thread for the binding, my snips, a needle, or (in the case of my Australia trip) HALF of the stays! Here is where they stays are now: Since the last post I sewed down all of the gilded linen outer covering fabric: I also worked all of the front eyelets, binding them in blue thread for a bit of contrast, and to match the lining: The lining is completely done, but I still need to work all of the back eyelets: I’m binding all the edges in white kid leather cut from damaged vintage gloves: The binding isn’t completely accurate – it has both raw edges showing, and most …