I appear to have (mostly) made a corset.

I spent all morning faffing around with my printer, trying to put together some packaging for my badges, and sadly failed miserably. As a result, I decided to spend the afternoon doing something a little more productive.

So, I made a corset.

This is the first mock-up from the pattern I drafted the other day:

It's made from three layers - cotton fashion fabric, a heavy drill for strength, and the lining is some lightweight black poly/cotton I had lying around. The waist tape is enclosed between the layers and is made from grosgrain ribbon, and the binding's black poly/cotton.

The bones are Rigilene (two on each seam, plus front and back), and the front fastening is hook and eye tape. I'm waiting for my steel bones and busk to arrive, and I had these on hand, so I thought they'd be okay to just test the pattern.

I know it doesn't look very shapely, but that's because I'm not a very curvy shape! I wanted my first draft to fit my body shape pretty closely (this gives a two-inch reduction at the waist) before I started messing around with different proportions.

Sadly I can't try it on just yet, because the last thing I need to do is add the grommets!

As you can see, I didn't bother too much about pattern-matching on this one, as I was just using up a small remnant of fabric. The binding's also done on the sewing machine rather than by hand, just for speed.

I think it looks okay for a first attempt though - although it remains to be seen how it behaves once I put it on.

Learning to make corsets.

A long time ago (April 2006), I made a corset.

It didn't fit me, but it did fit Ceri:



As it happens I never got around to making another one, and I eventually sold the pattern, forgetting that I still had all the boning for it! (I used plastic boning and hook & eye tape for Ceri's corset, as it was only supposed to be a mock-up.) The pattern is Simplicity 9769, and the boning required for it is as follows:

1 x 30cm busk
2 x 29cm 13mm bones
All remaining bones are 7mm sprung steel:
4 x 28 cm
2 x 27.5 cm
4 x 27 cm
4 x 25.5 cm
4 x 24 cm
2 x 23 cm

The cost to buy this lot individually would be £11.27, plus postage. Who wants to take it off my hands for a nice round £10, including UK p&p?

I also have the Laughing Moon corset pattern #100, for the Dore and Silverado corsets. Sizes 6-26 (Bust 30½" to 48", Waist 23" to 40" approx) are included. The pattern costs £7.75, plus postage. Anybody want it for a fiver?

All I've done with this pattern is take out the instruction sheets and read them. They're very thorough!

However, because I'm such an odd shape, and have such a lot of random and varied pains in my abdominal area, I decided that it was simply too much hassle to try and re-draft a commercial corset pattern to fit my shape. Instead I've spent today with a tape measure and a t-square, working out how to draft a corset pattern for myself.

I haven't looked at any historical books for inspiration, I'm not going for any kind of period-correct shape. All I want to do is make a little underbust corset, which fits my short waist and general proportions.

So far I've measured myself in all sorts of places. This enabled me to draw out a sloper based on my own measurements.

Then I worked out how much negative ease I needed in order to create a pretty shape, but also to (hopefully) remain comfortable. Once the new shape was drawn in, I could trace off the individual pattern pieces, and work out what length of bones and busk I need to order.



It's just a very simple pattern to begin with - only eight panels - but it will have three layers and should be a very strong corset. Assuming it fits, it should reduce my waist by about two inches, hopefully without being too tight across my abdomen. We'll see.

While I'm waiting for my bits of steel to arrive, I can start putting all the layers and working out how I want to sew them together. I have a plan for the fashion fabric, in the form of an old pair of trousers which I outgrew long ago, but couldn't bring myself to throw away.

Look out for a bright pink wool tartan corset coming this way in the near future!