OK, garbing forum regulars, it is indeed your old Amras paying you a visit. I have a question about bodices, the answer to which may be quite obvious to such a knowledgeable group as this, but is quite beyond my meager experience...
This weekend, we acquired a new Moresca bodice for Lady Elfwine...this bodice is solid across the front, and laces up each side and up the back...my question concerns the laces at the very back of the bodice. Unlike Lady Elfwine's other bodices,this one came with two laces for the back instead of one...what is the proper way to lace this? Do you start at the bottom and top, meeting in the middle with each lace? Or, do you start in the middle, ending up at the top and bottom? Or is there another way?
I'm quite sure that for such fine and experienced artisans such as yourselves it'll be obvious, but things like this take all my brains.
Thanks, and Cheers!
Your Humble Amras
Well we prefer using spiral lacing but it sounds like this bodice at least was not intended to be laced that way. But when they give you 2 laces, you usually start in the middle and work out or from both ends to the middle but middle out is more typical from what I've seen.
When using two laces, I recommend the top to center and bottom to center method. This allows for easy release of both laces at the same time, and allows for more control when one or the other needs to be tighter or looser laced.
I'd get new laces and do the spiral or ladder lacing method. It actually is "tighter" in that it won't loosen nearly as much over as it's being worn for hours and is also "period correct".
Hey Amras! All the bodices that I have with two laces were set up in the from top to center, then bottom to center method. They came that way so I've kept them that way. When I had a merchant lace me up in a leather bodice that had two back laces, that's the way they did it as well.
Wich moresca did you guys get?
if its the max I have mine spiral laced in the back, and on the other sides I have laced the standard way...
hope that helps
It is indeed "The Max".
I thank you all for the info. She'll lace it several different ways, I'm sure, to see which works best for her. I bet that spiral lacing, starting at top and bottom, meeting in the center, will win.
Thanks again!
Cheers!
Amras
Definitely from top and bottom to center. By the very nature of a womans body ie. wider at hips and bosom, a bodice or corset can be adjusted for maximum and proportionate fitting this way.
My Max's both just have the one lace in the back, though my pirate came with two in the back originally, and as I've gotten a little smaller, I've gone to only needing the 1. My preferred method with just one lace is bottom to top in the back to give ahem, the girls the most OOMPH, and my side lacings on the Max's are laced top to bottom, which allows me to get myself out of the bodice easily if I need to.
My thanks to all for helping to advance this old forest-tramper's knowledge about bodice lacing...fascinating!