Now that fitting is done, onto all the work that it actually takes to make stays.

My stays are 2 layers of linen canvas, one layer of blue-green linen from my English Lady dress, and will be lined with whatever linen I find in the stash.

I drew on boning channels, based on examples in Corsets and Crinolines, plus the sample channels from my pattern.

Then when sewing them, realized I had forgotten to leave a channel on the inside of the eyelets front and back, which is why the sewing here doesn’t match up perfectly to the pencil. Oh well.

Then time for a million eyelets. As of this picture I had only finished the back, but a week later I’ve also finished the front. This took way longer than I expected.

I suspect that real stays used linen thread for the eyelets (especially on all linen stays), but I didn’t want to have to buy any. So, I used the apple green silk buttonhole twist leftover from my 1850s Victorian dress. Not period, but pretty!

This is also a reminder to check your sources before sewing. When I looked at real stays later, I saw that none of them had lacing going all the way down into the tabs on the back, it all stopped on top. That would have been 3 fewer eyelets per piece if I had noticed that.

Next up, sewing the fronts to the backs, and drafting some shoulder straps.