The dreaded chemise sleeve of last year's ball haunts me, and it's tainting everything I make for this years one. I've already posted about the chemise and drawers I made from the Simplicity pattern. They were far too big, despite my fiddling. Then, I remembered, I had another pattern for undergarments, albeit a Truly Victorian (TV102) one. It says 1880s on the envelope, but drawers are drawers, and I needed a day chemise that didn't skim my shoulders. What the hell, I uttered as I peeled open the envelope.
I love, love, love, this pattern, there's not one single thing wrong with it. It went together like fine cotton, and it took me all of a few hours. The drawers took a little longer, but they were still much better than the simplicity ones. And the best thing? The day chemise can be worn off the shoulder as an evening one! Even better, I could whip up another one quickly and replace the simplicity one. I'm still in the process of making up the 2nd evening one, but when it's done I'll have 3 chemises all for 1870s. I'm drawing attention to this fact because it repeats itself in the near future.
For the original day one I had some keyhole lace left over and put that around the neckline, this serves as a drawstring to tighten it for day wear. I could use this one for evening wear, but it would mean I couldn't wear it in the day (dancing makes you sweaty).
Now we move onto the corset. If you read my other posts you'll know how much I hate corsets. I'll admit, this one wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, barring those annoying gussets. They weren't as hard to insert with the coutil as they were with the muslin mock-up, or the lining. I kind of ignored the instructions for the pattern in some parts, like eyelet placing, and busk insertion (instead relying on other internet sources), and it turned out quite well.
One minor thing, which I thought would be cool at the time, was if I made the boning channels visible. All I mean by this is that I used a coloured thread to put the channels in rather than white (I was using white coutil). I had some bright blue thread left over from a project years ago, and decided to use it. This was a mistake, my sewing skill isn't so good that I don't make mistakes, and when you're using blue thread on white fabric, you can see every mistake. To top it all off, the blue thread ran out halfway through, and rather than buying thread I had never used anyway, I started to use some red thread I also had left over. What could have been a neat, pristine looking corset turned into a bit of a ragtag one. In the end I decided to go along with the mismatched theme with the bias binding.
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| Back hip gusset |
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| Lining |
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| Cut and insert boning |
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| Before flossing |
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| My attempt at flossing |
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| Finished |
It gives me a nice hourglass shape, which was what I wanted all along as my other corsets tend to just flatten me out, and it gives good push to the ladies (thanks gussets). My mismatched top bias binding ironically doesn't correspond to the left and right hand sides, but rather what side I used red thread, and what side I used blue.
Material is 100% white cotton coutil, with 100% white cotton lawn used for the lining. I made up the coutil first, then made any final adjustments (always to the bust), then made up the lawn in the same way (should probably do that the other way around the next time).
I tried to floss it again, but then gave up....because I hate corsets.
All in all, for my second completed attempt, and third overall, it's not bad, and it'll do.
I had the strength to also start the Mantua Maker pattern that I mentioned in a previous post as looking very similar. In fear I hadn't done the above one properly I ordered this one as well. I was right, the pattern was exactly the same, only slightly improved and with many more options for sizes. I made a mock-up, not pictured, and realised that it was far too long. Very foolishly I didn't take it up equally in the back and the front (I thought this was a good idea, I know). I had to go down a size on all of the gussets, and decided to go for the smallest bust gusset (will be a later mistake). I got halfway through re-completing the mock-up and gave up. I got bored, and my heart just wasn't in it, so I moved straight onto the coutil.
A few years back I must have bought this patterned coutil from somewhere and it's been sitting there waiting for my corset making skills to improve ever since. My skills have not improved, but I used it anyway. In this pattern it gives you a few different ways for putting in gussets. For anyone who's ever had to do it, especially bust gussets which end in a point, you'll know how annoying and fiddly it can be. I'm not sure how I managed it with the first corset, or my regency ones. Since this corset is taken from an original pattern, it came with the original instructions, but when the author admitted that every time they looked at them they were different, I skipped straight over.
The second set of instructions changed my life, no joke. Instead of pinning together the gusset and the body, fiddling with that stupid point and trying not to nick the fabric so there's a small gather at the bust point, this simply says you fold the edges of the gusset under and then place it over the gusset hole, grading the seams so there's minimal bulk. Oh my God, where has this method been all my sewing life? The only slight problem I came across was how to fold in the raw edges at the point of the gusset; my hands just weren't dexterous enough to do this well. The hip gussets are considerably easier.
I repeated with the lining, and I'm going to admit here that it's probably the first time that my lining has actually matched up pretty exactly to the main body. There's always one bit that's too big, or too tight (what happened with the first corset), but I had no such problems with this one, possible because I didn't have to do any seam adjustments because I'd already went for the smaller gussets.
Then came time to insert the busk. Again, I used the instructions I remembered from my very first corset. Sew lining right sides together, then flipping it to the inside. I can safely say I'm confident in inserting busks, including knowing which way is up, but then something strange happened.
Yep, I got the alignment of the busk wrong! I know exactly where I went wrong. For some reason I couldn't remember how I'd managed to get the right place for the non-hook side, and I made a few small mistakes when I was inserting it. I was having one of those days. The result is that the top and bottom of the corset are slightly off. Thankfully it's only a few millimetres, and now the worst of my problems, so was fixed with very careful trimming.
The biggest problem came when I tried it on. Remember before when I said I had altered he pattern because the corset was too long for my liking? Remember when I said I had taken more off the length of the front than the back? Well, that was stupid. The corset is now too short at the front, and just reaches my mid-bust. I feel like I'm spilling out the top of it, and that's saying something, the ladies don't have enough substance to "spill" out of anything. This is when I also realise that the bust gussets may be too small. It's a shame because this corset is so pretty, but there have been many mistakes, therefore teaching me that mock-ups are good, and worth the time.
Obviously being so deep into the project now, the only option I had was to finish it. This wasn't really a problem since I already had a finished corset that did fit properly, this was really only for comparison sake. The boning pattern for this was different to what I've ever seen or used. The suggested improvement I made to the first one (extra bone between busk and first bust gusset) was done on this one. 2 bones between bust gussets, one extending to the waist, the other into the hip gisset but not to the bottom edge, 1 on the side seam, 1 just behind the side seam, 2 surrounding eyelets, and 2 diagonal from back. This surprised me too as I thought they would be really uncomfortable. According to the historical notes on the instructions the original pattern had bones on the diagonal at the back from the eyelets to the top edge. I wanted to try it and see if it was as uncomfortable as I was thinking. I'm not entirely sure what these bones are for because they don't feel any different to if I hadn't put them in. Strange. If anyone can shed light here....
I laced it up and tried it on. There was some wrinkling at the back just above the back hip gusset, obviously because there was little support, so I added another bone at the back to stop this. It didn't completely do the trick, but considering I could never really wear this corset with anything due to the boob spillage out the top my effort levels dropped to negative values. I bound and finished it, no flossing because.....well....
And so I finished the corset I've now christened the "fitting purposes only" corset. One to wear to fit skirts, bodices, and the like, but not to actually wear to an event.
