Petticoat & the Stays of Despair

Lady Fancyson here:

I did a fun project and a freakin’ terrible not so fun project.  The fun project was a petticoat! I found a very straight forward tutorial on American Duchess.

It was great. It was fast, I cut the fabric zip, zap, zam, it was done. Magical. Then I started on the stays. *dun dun dunnnn* I’m thinkin’, ok I bought a pattern for this thing so how bad can it be? I’ll just follow the instructions and it’ll be fine.

Nope.

To be fair, the pattern itself was fine. (Butterick Making History B4254) Beyond that though everything about this thing was frustrating. First I couldn’t find the called for ‘canvas interfacing’ so I had to replace it with other interfacing, I ended up using medium-thick coat interfacing and honestly I should’ve bought something sturdier like buckram. Then my sewing machine refused cooperate. ARGH. Then I couldn’t find boning (at this point I’m on my knees shouting to the heavens). I ended up buying 3 bags of cable ties, which surprise surprise, was not enough to fill all the boning channels. I got kinda lucky here though because I hadn’t sewn in the channels on the front of the stays. Tired, exasperated, and in no mood to buy more cable ties I redrew the channels on the front to accommodate the amount of ties that I had. Surely from here on the project was smooth sailing.

Wrong again.

For a while everything was fine. I managed sewing in the remainder of the channels, I inserted the boning, la di da di da. Then I moved to covering the edges of the garment with bias tape. I bought 2 packages and found myself 6 inches short of covering all the edges. Fine, said I, clearly I should’ve read the pattern and bought the length of bias tape suggested. I’ll just order some more tape on the internet instead of bussing 2 hours back to the craft store. But lo! Did Amazon have the color? Nay! Did Joann’s, where I had initially bought the tape have the color in there online store? NAY! Did Wrights (the brand I bought from), Simplicity, or anywhere else I checked have the freakin’ white satin bias tape I originally bought?! NAY!  I laid on the floor and hoped to be reclaimed by the earth, clearly I was being punished for trying a project that was so ambitious. I could feel the sun melting the wax on my feathers.

But reader, I would not be defeated by underwear!

Epically frustrated, I bought some plain white bias tape and knocked out the last few inches of uncovered edge. I thoroughly enjoyed stabbing the holes into sides of this evil project for the lacing. Finally, I stitched around the lacing holes and at long last I finished.

Did this project turn me into a human pin cushion, yes. Did it cause me volcanically explosive episodes of anger, indeed. Did it send me on an existential quest to find the meaning to life, briefly. BUT, I did the damn thing. Believe in your dreams, people!