A quick guide to where to find materials for your Augusta Stays. There are a lot of specialty materials needed, so working with a supplier who is familiar with historical staymaking (for View A), or corsetry (for View B) will make the process a lot easier. In addition to the ones listed, many local fabric shops will carry suitable linens or wools, and with the theatrical stays your fabric imagination can go wild, as long as you achieve the right level of support and strength with your mix of materials. Have I missed a supplier? Let me know in the comments! I’m most familiar with US & UK suppliers, so a huge thank you to readers who advised me about suppliers in other places. This list was accurate as of October 2019.  The available materials at each supplier change all the time, so we cannot guarantee that the list is still accurate.   View A: Historical: Everything you need: Burnley & Trowbridge (US): This wonderful business is your one-stop Augusta Stays materials shop. They carry: …

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 …

Meet the Augusta Stays pattern: the perfect foundation for your late 18th century wardrobe.   Buy the pattern here! With two bust-to-waist ration size sets, to make fitting as easy as possible, and both historically accurate and theatrical pattern pieces and sewing instructions, the pattern has everything you need to make beautiful stays – whether they are perfectly historically accurate, quick and easy theatrical versions, or a combination of both.  The pattern comes in bust sizes 30″-52″ (76-132cm), with the options for a ‘straight’ fit, which has a finished garment measurement 10″ smaller than the bust, and a ‘curvy’ fit, which has a finished garment measurements 12″ smaller than the bust. The historically accurate pattern features adjustable partial front lacing, full back lacing, three layers of construction fabric, tape binding, and an optional loose lining and optional taped seams.  The theatrical versions features a solid front piece, two layers of construction fabrics, an optional decorative outer layer, metal lacing grommets, and bias binding.   Both versions are spiral laced and use synthetic whalebone (German plastic boning). …