Staying with the Stays: The Journey of hand-stitching 18th century undergarments

Hello all!

Last July I set myself the challenge to make an 18th-century gown. Due to my inexperience in sewing of course I followed a pre-made pattern most notably the Simplicity-American Duchess designed outlander red dress. Later on, hyped from the realisation that I can now make and wear all the dresses I ever dreamed to wear and feel like I lived in the past so I decided to grace my lovely gown with some proper undergarments. I picked the fabric from a charity shop about £5 for a pair of unmade curtain fabrics call "kew" and bought zip-ties (I couldn't really afford proper boning on a uni budget) as well as leather binding and ribbons and off I went.

Now I'm not going to lie it wasn't easy. Everything was absolutely fine till I messed with the pattern and decided the tabs weren't long enough... but also wasn't fussed enough to change them back.
Furthermore because I bought pre-made leather binding it was thicker than the suggested leather by American Duchess and boy did my fingers suffer my foolishness to stick to instructions. Luckily my granddad bought me some plastic thimbles for all my fingers making it a lot easier to grip the (extremely sharp) leather needle.

Next time I would love to make another pair of stays, possibly fully boned and with no more hand-stitched eyelets or leather..