Lyric's 18th Century Undergarments

I finished sewing these ages ago, but forgot to take some photos and post them, so here you go!

These are Lyric's 18th century undergarments.
I made her a muslin shift, stays and a simple half petticoat.
I might make her some pocket hoops, stockings and garters later on, but these are what I have right now.

Here is Miss Lyric, posed in front of my sister's dollhouse

Here you can see the seam and boning channels. The "whalebone" is actually thin strips of clear plastic cut to fit. There is a wooden toothpick with the tips trimmed off in the front channel for the busk.

The straps are made of cloth tape which was glued on with craft glue inside the back, then hooks were sewn on the front to attach to the front with crocheted thread loops.

Here you can see how it laces up the back. There are no eyelets, the lacing is sewn through the fabric in between the last two boning channels on each side.

Fun fact: Her stays took me one whole day to sew, and are sewn completely by hand. Her shift is also sewn by hand, but only took me about 15-20 minutes (because the muslin was being a pain. Please don't use muslin for a shift, it doesn't stop fraying and it's a real pest. Use voile or batiste instead, the tighter weave will make it work a lot better.)

This is what her stays look like with the half petticoat and no shift.

And here's the back.

The stays pattern I drafted myself, and my mum helped me to calculate a simple pattern for the shift (made up of squares and rectangles).

If anyone wants the patterns and measurements, let me know and I'll scan them in to post.

I don't know if they will print out the right size though, so I'll put a 1-inch square on the stays pattern because that is the one which is necessary to get the perfect size.

I can also do a tutorial if you need help making them :)

They weren't that hard, just fiddly and time-consuming. Same goes for the shift. Plus the petticoat hem took me an hour or so because it was a proper hem, folded over narrowly twice and held in place by super tiny stitches.

So that's what I ended up making.

Opinions?

I didn't think the stays were completely 18th century accurate, and I wanted to put bows on the straps above the hooks for decoration, as well as some tabs to go out round her hips, but I think they turned out really well still.

What have you been sewing?

~Jessica xo