Everything Austen Challenge II - Day 1

Today is the first official day of my Everything Austen Challenge and I started it off by actually completing two things on my list -- stays for my picnic costume and rewatching "Lost in Austen" while I did the hand finishing on my stays. I think that Jane Austen would have been pleased with my multi-tasking. Even though it was the third time I watched the series, I still enjoyed every minute of it. There are just such hilarious lines and for being a parody of the Regency era, the costumer did an excellent and seemingly very accurate job. I was pleased to see that Mr. Bingley's frock coat in the first Netherfields scene is very much like the blue-gray linen one I am making for my husband and I intend to use light blue ribbon for my bonnet like the one Mrs. Bennet wears to church.

Anyway, I could talk about the series all day, but I probably should say something about the big picture of underwear above. I used the Sense & Sensibility pattern for short stays and since I've made Victorian era corsets before, these were fairly easy to make. I did a fit muslin first and found the C cup gussets to be too generous so I went down to the B, but even so, the finished stays still stuck out a bit too much at the top of the bust as can be seen in the picture below. My husband suggested putting darts in the gussets to take them in at the top, which did the trick, even though it meant having to remove and resew the seam binding at the front.

Even with the ridge across the top, I think that I look a bit less like a walrus, although my test muslin dress still looks like a wrinkled flour sack. Hopefully, the striped voile I ordered for the finished dress will arrive from India next week.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful 4th of July weekend!