1780s stays - part 1

This is going to be a small series because the process of making these has just been sooo long.

I started off by selecting a pattern to use. I wanted something that would work for the periods I'm most likely to create costumes for (1770s, 80s and 1790s) and so I chose a pattern from Norah Waugh's 'Corsets and Crinolines' for a set of 1780s stays. The stays from this period really don't seem to change very much until you get to the transitional stays of the mid-late 1790s so I figured they'd be fine for 1770s stuff too. 

I scaled up the pattern to full size using the little key you can see on the bottom left, made my first toile and it was way too big. I was expecting it to be too small because of how often we're told that people were much smaller back then.

I shaved a little bit off of the pattern at various points and then made another toile which was again, too big. The problem point seemed to be the centre front so I had to take a lot off there, I also shuffled the shoulder strap tabs on the front pieces towards the middle to give myself more room to move my arms around without them cutting in. Then I made my third toile.

A wild mother appears! 

And it finally fit. Victory! I wanted at least a 2" gap at the back so that I could cinch it tighter if I wanted too. My weight also tends to fluctuate ever so slightly, just enough that sometimes my corsets end up a tiny bit too big. Finally happy with it, I adjusted the pattern, cut it out of nice pattern paper and then cut it out in my final fabrics.

I added (I think) 2cm of seam allowance to each side and the top and (I think) 3.5cm to the bottom. In retrospect I should have added more seam allowance to the centre back seem so that I could add more boning and move the eyelets further over. 
For my final fabrics I used two layers of cream herringbone coutile and a peach-gold silk for my top fabric.

As my guide I'm using this post from Before the Automobile. This lovely lady's costumes are a complete inspiration to me and her 1780s stays are absolutely gorgeous.
I decided to follow her method exactly so that meant sewing all the boning channels and inserting the boning before sewing the pieces together. This was why I had to make sure the pattern fit me perfectly before I cut it out of the silk and coutile because once the boning channels are sewn there is no way to change the size of the pieces.

Next time I'll talk about sewing the boning channels.