Like Candy...

I love sewing.  You don't even know.  I just love moving the needle in and out, building shapes, creating form.  It just thrills me!  Don't ask me why, it just does.
So, I decided to start a huge project: hand sewing 18th century stays, like this extant pair:

Ooooo...  Aaaaah...

I took a class in Boston at The Hive from Hallie Larkin who does this full-time (her blog is called, appropriately, "18th Century Stays"), and I saved the project for a moment when I would have a lot of time and no bulky equipment, i.e. when I went to Paris for the summer!  So I get to amuse myself by sewing a million boning channels with teeny tiny stitches.

^-^

Here are the front pieces with all of the boning channels sewn!!
(I will have lacing holes in the front and back of my stays since I have no maid and no man to help me in and out of them.)

The last short channels turned out different on each side.  C'est la vie.

Look at those careful stitches!

Count 'em!  12 to the inch!!!  I am amazing. 

Seriously, stitching is like eating candy.  Truest metaphor I ever made.