Stays Original

Just a quick add-on to my stays postings.  I took a tour around the Dewitt Wallace Museum today, and lo and behold they had the stays I'm building up in the Quilted Fashions exhibit.  There's not much light, but you can get an idea:

It's a bit hard to see, but you might notice the lack of boning casings showing.  This pair was originally made of silk, but must have worn too much because it's been covered over in cotton.  So, I will still be making mine visible.  The binding is green silk ribbon.  I'll probably use cream so it doesn't show under any of my clothes, but maybe I'll use a color to lace the front for fun, since I can always change it out.  The difficulty will be finding a good cording to lace the back.  Now that I got a glimpse of those and was able to examine a few others stored in back, I'm going to pick back up on my pair and start stitching channels.  I had been concerned with size since the original channels are all 1/8", but they were baleen.  Oak won't hold up to that, and even though I've managed to find spring steel that size, I'm afraid it won't have the resistance to permanent bending I need.  So, seeing a late pair of stays with mixing of 1/4" and 1/8" channels today I feel confident that I can mix in 1/4" steel correctly.