The making of...
I had bought some black cotton coutil in a sale, and since the original corset in the book is black with yellow I decided just to do that.I made 1 mock-up, of which I took no pictures. This project flew under the radar a wee bit because I was doing so many other things at the same time. Simultaneously I was also re-doing Waugh's 1776 stays, making prototype pocket hoops, designing a robe a la francaise, and even began to draft a fantasy gown.
The thing about corsets, to me, is that they're hard on the fingers. Because coutil is quite stiff, and tightly woven, sometimes getting pins through is hard, so I tend to get sore hands, and cuts. Thankfully, after 4 years of trying, I actually find corsets rather easy to put together (it's the boning channels in the seams that's difficult).
I realised the problem with my natural form era corset was that it flattened my chest rather than supported it. In other words, it functioned more like 18th century stays than a 19th century corset. So with the 1890s pattern I ensured I was supported rather than squashed.
Yes, that is a 2" waist reduction, but it was laced soooo tightly. I'd never wear it outside like that.
Unfortunately that shape reads more natural form to me than 1890s. There's something softer about the hip curve in the 1890s. I forgot this when I was drafting the pattern and so my hip just shoots out rather than curves out. Still, that shape is better than no shape, and the late 1890s was the time of hip pads, so I think I'm just being picky.
I pondered over what busk to use. The pattern in Salen has a straight one, but spoon busks were being used, and I'd already used one for my natural form era. I can't remember why I chose to use a straight one, but I did.
I also don't think the waistline of the corset matches my actual waistline. Also some of the panels waistline didn't match up. Corsetry experts will now be thinking that means the corset won't fit right, and true, laced tightly it did start digging in just underneath my ribs, a few cm above my natural waist. But here's the thing, I'm relatively straight up and down from bust to waist. And you can see from the pic above that the slight shift in waistline doesn't seem to create much of an issue, unless I lace it tightly which I never do.
At this point there was some gaping at the bust. I wrongly assumed that the corset just went too high, creating a cup shape more like a bra cup than a mid-bust corset curve. Unfortunately I was wrong, but stupidly didn't fix it before boning the seams. So the seam ripper came out. I took the bust in a little bit, but I lost a lot of the shape on my bust. Still not as flat as the natural form era...I honestly don't understand where my boobs go in corsets!
Something mildly annoying happened with this corset, and it's definitely a first. I only did 1 mock-up before cutting into the black coutil. It laced closed all the way in the back, but it fit. Hence I only had to take out the amount that would mean a lacing gap would be created. I took about half an inch from the sidemost panel, and one of the CB panels.
I don't know WTF I did but when I made it all up and tried it on the corset barely reached around my back. I had to go and re-cut the sidemost panel back to the original. The final corset is actually the same pattern I used for the first mock-up (with the waistline altered a few cm). I'm definitely getting better at scaling things up accurately.
Then came boning, on the seams, and usually in the back where it tends to wrinkle for me. I did toy with doing cording at the bust, since it was very popular at the time and that's what the original corset has, but I wasn't sure how that would affect the overall length since I hadn't factored in shrinkage for cording.
I bought special black and yellow lace, in an attempt to match the original, but I placed mine differently.
All in all this didn't take long, in fact I think it's the fastest corset I've ever made, and it was definitely the time saved from not doing multiple mock-ups. Perhaps I just got lucky this time, or perhaps I'm genuinely getting better at scaling things up to my size. Who knows. There was one minor problem in that I ran out of black bias binding for the bottom, and so for a few inches at the back, the black bias binding changes to the yellow I have on the top. Apparently if you don't bleed on your corset something else needs to go wrong.
I like the fit, and there's still some room to put some padding underneath the hips of the corset for that 1890s hourglass figure.
