18th Century WHAT?!

So yes, somehow I convinced myself that I could create a fun 18th century costume in a month to do a costume mob.

And yeah, I probably could have done it...
...except I waited until last week to start working on it!

So really, nothing is done except the stays, but I'll freely admit that I'm quite pleased with them. I apologize for the bad pics - hubby had the camera so the phone had to suffice:

Here's the front, as modeled by my lovely pillows. The fashion fabric is from a curtain swag I fell in love with at the thrift store. The binding is medium weight brown linen. There is non-woven interfacing inside, and the lining is a heavy-ish twill. The bones are the only thing that wasn't in my stash, and I used heavy duty duct ties from the hardware store. 

Here's the back. Notice the spiral lacing which is rather interesting to get into. Can't do it alone, that's for sure. And of course the black shoelace isn't ideal, but I don't own any brown boots to steal laces from.













The pattern is from J.P. Ryan (found here:http://www.jpryan.com/details/stays.html) and I strongly recommend it. This was a cinch to put together (no pun intended), but it was certainly time consuming. This one was made from the unaltered pattern and it left no gap in the back. Next time I'll order a size smaller or do some manipulation to give a little  more cone-cinch and some gap.

Next up: the J.P. Ryan Pet-en-l'air (found here: http://www.jpryan.com/details/petenlair.htm) made from some lovely blue and white curtains - thrifted, of course!

It feels SO GOOD to be sewing for myself, for fun...