Master work gone awry

Well look at that - another posts and it's not been four years since the last one! Winner!

No doubt, if anyone has read my previous posts, I'm pretty good at making project lists. Sticking to them is another story, primarily because there's so many dresses to make and no time to make them all, regardless of my best intentions.

Right now, though, I am working on a project I've wanted to make since discovering the wonder that is late 18th century frockage. I made a costume-y version if this from LACMA about 10 years (and many less kilos) ago out of cotton drill and cotton osnaburg. I have been meaning to make something else from the time period for AGES and never really got around to it. This is the only picture I can find of me in it:

Moi, Halloween, c. 2005.

Well, now I am. Getting around to it, that is. My Vision™ was to make it a Master work - hand sew as much as was practical, draft all of my own patterns and use period-accurate fabrics, like the reproduction Indienne fabric I bought from Colonial Williamsburg last year.

I wanted this:

 From Janet Arnold, Patterns of Fashion 2 (I think...)

Allow me to recount the story of how this project went from an achievable goal in April and is now hitting panic stations in September, for an event in October:

• I had a half finished Elizabethan chemise. My plan was to unpick it, re-cut it to an 18th century shape, sew it up and hand finish it. I had hand finished more of the chemise than I remembered and, since I didn't want to waste all that work, I just lopped off the long sleeves to make them 3/4, and the neckline will wait until I've finished the caraco. Suffice to say, I'm not happy where the shoulders sit... On track for deadline.
• Bum pad was based on the illustration The Bum Shop, 1785 (Lewis Walpole Library), as referenced by Kendra and Dreamstress. I'm happy with it. All hand sewn. It should make the skirts look t'riffic. On track for deadline.
• Pockets drafted from an extant example in Bursfield. Again, all hand sewn and they'll do the job nicely. On track for deadline.
• Corset was drafted based on Hunnisett, with boning channels sourced from Salen and Lynn (Underwear: Fashion in Detail) with amazing help from my awesome friend S. I made the decision to use coutil as interlining, knowing it wasn't period correct, but when you have as much acreage as I do, you just don't trust loose weave linens to stem the tide, as it were. Everything was cut out, the channels were machine sewn (because I like my fingers).
•  Then I lost July. Through sundry circumstances, this whole project wasn't touched in July. At all. Train meet floor: there goes the rails.
• August saw me putting in the boning (artificial whalebone, because I like whales) and I ran out. I had to wait over a week and a half for the remainder to arrive. Minor set back, but I used the time to make a bed jacket to loan to a friend for the event.
• Boning arrived and then I could get going on finishing the seams, doing the eyelets, sewing the whole thing together and binding it. As of now, I'm still on eyelets...

This project will be worn for a Georgian picnic on the 9th October. I'm going to finish it if it kills me. As I type, a JP Ryan pattern for the same jacket out of PoF is winging its way to me - it's a compromise, but the idea of a master work went out the window after July. I have also collected a few websites for how to make a cap and the petticoats will be a couple of tubes, but everything from this point hangs on me getting the corset done.

And to add some cherries, I've got Deadlines at work which means extra hours to Get Stuff Done (all capitalisation is on purpose).

I have six full days to finish this project. Wish me luck.