(so promise her someone else's firstborn...you have apprentices...)

I use a buttonhole stitch that is anchored on the tape at the beginning and the end of the stitching. I start about 1" in from the end, buttonhole to the end, then overcast the tip to prevent fraying, wrap aroun again, and tie off.

I use waxed linen thread - you have to pull each stitch tight, and make them so close together that very little of the tape is showing. Some will show (especially when you start using the laces), but as long as it's tight, it will remain stiff enough to lace. :)

Did that help?

Wow - you got that from an Elizabethan article? I am good. (kidding) 8)

It's all about the little details.

Bob takes very good pictures of me.

Thanks. :) I've discovered over the years that people respond better to photographs - I think it's part of the modern mindset. The old pictures and paintings are hard for people to "see" in the same way that they "see" photographs as representative of clothing.

...Which is a whole essay in and of itself. :)

Considering so many people are experiencing it, I though I might talk about polite ways to avoid being taken advantage of. People hate making a scene, and mooches know that. Others are so oblivious to their impact on the people around them that they really honestly don't understand why just sitting down in someone's chair and not budging is rude.

And both sets of people get very bent out of shape when called on it - hence the "making a scene" avoidance - it's not the nice person who is being taken advantage of that's making the scene, it's the rude person, who somehow feels that being asked to stop ruining everyone else's experience is rude.

*eye*roll* the logic of these people, it kills me.

Heh heh heh heh heh. Our evil plan is working. It's working!!! ;)

No, they didn't always - there is no real colour logic to clothing in the 16th/17th century - if they liked the look of things together, they did it. Most hats end up being black because it's fashionable, and they're made of felt, which takes a black dye nicely (and hold on to it). However, hats were made of fur felt (beaver and such), leather, silk, linen canvas, knit - whatever worked.

If you want to go with an entirely powder blue outfit, you wouldn't neccessarily be doing anything wrong. :) There's a woman in the Fete at Bermondsey painting (it's available on Google images) who is wearing a pink gown with a pink hat - but the skirt is split with a contrasting colour underneath, and her sleeves are also another colour - that might be an attractive way to do it.

You can also use the blue as an accent colour - in the guarding (trim bands) on a petticoat, or make the doublet one colour, and the sleeves powder blue. It's a bit of a cliche, but black with light blue accents would also look really striking.

*dies*

Well, I'm working on that particular subject.

It is possible that both petticoats could be laced in - waistbands are not that bulky. One could simply be tied to itself - and there's the issue that pointing doesn't seem to become a big thing for women until the end of the 16th c. The tudor outfits are one piece, but sometimes there's a petticoat visible underneath - it might simply be tied.

Some may be pointed, some not. As we all know, a skirt will sit at the waist just fine without being laced into the top - and if the issue is gappage, the petticoat underneath doesn't matter, since the top one is pointed.

The one thing that seems more probable is that ties of some sort rather than hooks were used.

1. I use several weights, depending on what I want - the more upper-class the shift, the finer the linen. If I'm expecting to be seen in my skivvies, I try for a little more opacity, and my working shift for J'Town is a little tougher, to withstand harder working conditions.

2. My favourite boning material is 1/8" or 1/4" round reed, but I have also used the others. Of the others, I lean towards cable ties, doubled in the channel - they have the bend and flexibility of whalebone (giving the slightly curved front in the icon with this reply). Rigilene is my least favourite - it's expensive, deteriorates easily, and doesn't provide anything any cheaper than cable ties. BTW, I use 75-80 cable ties per corset. Cable ties are also not suitable for Victorian corsets, since they are not strong enough to handle the more severe lacing - you need steel for that.

:)