This was an exciting moment – the stays are finally enough put together for a first try-on. And you never know how any foundation garment will fit until you put it on for the first time.

Eeeeee!!! These look awesome!

Compare the back to this extant pair:

I’ve got a nice even lacing gap in the back. The wrinkles around the waist that I saw in the mockup expectedly went away once I cut into the tabs.

They are bound with leather that I bought from the auto-supply store. The nice thing about leather is no fraying, just leave all the ends raw.

Binding around all those edges took for-freaking-ever. I assumed that I could bang out the binding in a weekend and HA HA NO that did not happen. (Maybe if I sat on the couch and marathoned it for 8+ hours straight, but I had things to do [mostly wedding planning related, which is eeee-worthy in and of itself])

To drape the strap, I had the fiancee pin a piece of fabric to the back stub. Then I laid it over my shoulder, and drew out where it looked like a strap should be.

Here you can see my problem with straps. I’ve got really narrow slopey shoulders, so pretty much all straps want to fall off (this is a problem with my bra straps as well). In order to have the strap actually on my shoulder, you can see there are only a few inches before my neck starts. Sooo narrow.

The final strap pattern. Here I felt super vindicated for having saved the tiniest scraps of linen.

(Yes, that shape does resemble exactly what you think).