Placket of doom

Despite lack of lace trim, I'm forging ahead with the Edwardian combination. I started sewing the petticoat tonight.

I was doing well until the placket business. Blech! I'm blaming it on my brain shutting off after two weeks of intensive summer courses (two weeks = 6 credits).

Taking a (corsetted) plunge

That's my grandmother's 1940 electrical Singer sewing machine. She's a gorgeous machine, and I love working on her a lot more than my twenty-first century traveling sewing machine. I focused on the right? side of the corset, sewing the seams together. I am still incredibly shaky with the lap-seams (aka French seams).

After the seams of doom, I need to sew on interfacing ... then I can start sewing the other side of the corset. I held the corset against my body, and it goes down my hip, which I love. My 1860s corset, bought from Abraham's Lady several years ago, is of course forty years earlier, style-wise. It ends at the waist. Edwardian women wore different clothes than their mid-Victorian sisters, so of course the undergarments are different.

The beautiful Millicent Evans, from turn of the century,
under Creative Commons attribution license.

White lawn

I found two websites that sell white lawn, which is what I need for my Edwardian combination. I cut out the pattern today and am itching to start sewing. However, no fabric ... and still at a standstill with the corset.

Fabric.com has a gorgeous white lawn, "suitable for lingerie" for 7.98 a yard, 2.95 shipping for first-time buyers, and 48 hour shipping.

However, Denver Fabrics also offers white lawn, but for 4.95 a yard. Unsure of shipping, but it's appropriate for blouses. I emailed the nice people in customer service about that particular fabric's appropriate-ness for lingerie.

Edit: I just heard back from Denver Fabrics. Since they do not have ready access to the fabrics, they invited me to send for 1/8th of a yard. Since their shipping time is about 10 days, and Fabric.com has two to three day shipping (if I remember correctly) ... I'm going to go with Fabric.com.

Edwardian Update

After spending the past few days away from home, I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed (and sleeping. Woke up at 5:30 this morning and drove four hours across the state to get to work ... after sleeping fitfully for five hours) ... and working on my undergarments.

I inter-library loaned a number of books on dressmaking. I'm still having a devil of a time trying to figure out lap seams. This is the only reason I haven't done any work on the corset since Monday. Since the books won't arrive until Monday, at the earliest, I'll start cutting out the pattern pieces for my Edwardian petticoat combination.

Now to find a store that sells nainsook, cambric, or lawn...

Update: DenverFabrics.com has the most delightful selection of 100% cotton lawn.

Sewing like it's 1909

The Past Patterns #106 1901-1909 Corset Kit arrived today ... complete with everything I need for my Edwardian corset (sans thread). Despite some confusion over lap seams (thank you VintageSewing.info) I was able to cut out one half of the corset, and sew it together. There's me "trying" on half of the muslin mock-up.