18th century stays

This is as far as I got yesterday

just got all the layers cut out 

But here is a little bit of my 18th Century Stays journey

Last year when I decided to do the 18th century project I knew I needed to have the proper garments.
That is when I started looking for patterns, tutorials, and tips on making stays. I  found a lot of helpful information.

I knew I needed to find a pattern. I know a lot of people  recommended Janet Arnold's book but you have to scale those patterns. Add since my school was a complete waste of time and money and never really taught us anything I have to learn how to scale patterns on my own. So for now working with Janet Arnold's book will have to wait. There are a lot of book with great patterns out there but again scale would be an issue.

So I started looking for paper patterns.  I found a few patterns that seems good based off of some reviews I read. I narrowed it down to two a pattern from JP Ryan and one that's from Simplicity that is now out of print on eBay.  After reading reviews and taking my knowledge of making stays into account I decided to go with the Simplicity pattern.

Simplicity 3635

I chose to go with this pattern since it was my first go at making stays. I needed clear and easy instructions and I knew that Simplicity was good at that.

 The fabric
 Picking out the fabric was harder then it should have been. I just didn't know what type of fabric to go with. I usually can spot a fabric I want and get it. Looking at a few fabric websites and visiting the fabric store not finding anything. Luckily I was working on another project that had leftover fabric.  I really loved the fabric I was using so i decided to use the rest of that fabric.

Pastoral Toile lilac and ivory upholstery fabric

The other two layers are just a grey linen and a canvas interfacing.

Pinned and ready to cut

After cutting out all three layers  I wanted to get started on sewing and the boning  but I wasn't up for it.