Comfort at Home

Another Historical Sew Monthly challenge completed! This time it's the March challenge, Comfort at Home, and I chose to make my 1911 corset (something which would only be seen in the home) more comfortable.

This was my very first attempt at historical sewing, way back in 2012. It was made as part of a sewalong to create the 1911 corset from Norah Waugh's Corsets and Crinolines. I remember that Jo, who ran the sewalong, provided lots of information and was very generous with her time and expertise to answer any queries as we went along. But I realise now that there were a lot of beginner's fit issues with my completed corset, mainly because I didn't know what questions I should be asking.

If I were the same shape as this dressform, all would be well - but I'm not

I tackled the problems with the corset top in 2020, and this made it more comfortable to wear - so long as I was standing up. If I sat down though, it wedged itself uncomfortably under my ribs. Through reading this post by The Dreamstress and the associated comments, I discovered that the cause was actually the lacing bones extending too far down the back of the corset: they were pushed up when I sat on something, and took the waist stay with them. The bones either side were also too long, which didn't help. I bought some new flat steels and set about dismantling parts of the corset. Again.

I unpicked the bottom binding, very carefully because it was satin and snagged easily, took out the original bones, replaced them and redid the flossing. I also had to take out an eyelet at the point where I wanted to cut off the excess.

It really was much too long

The original plan was to remove 2½" all round the bottom. But I had seen some teens era corsets where the bottom edge goes up at the centre front, and wondered about trying that. However, I couldn't end up with a raw edge longer than the original binding, as I have no more of the pink satin.

Testing out the intended bottom edge

The coutil I had used for the corset is quite soft and feels oddly loosely-woven for a coutil, and I was concerned about eyelet hole being so close to the new edge of the corset. The coutil I had used for the boning channels is far more rigid, so I used one of the cut-off scraps of it to patch the hole from inside the lacing panel.

I machined over it, and cut off the excess

I had also noticed that because of the length of the corset, the fronts pull apart quite a lot at the bottom of the busk. There was already some damage to the soft coutil, and it seemed inevitable that eventually the busk would tear a hole in it. I had some larger offcuts of the stiffer coutil, so I unpicked the lower stitching both sides, slipped a folded piece around the bottom of the busk, and machined everything back in place.

Reinforcement around the bottom of the busk

Then I reattached the binding and the suspenders. I did worry that the front ones might not be long enough, given the new shape, but fortunately I had allowed plenty extra when I originally made them.

Thank goodness for foresight

Then came the acid test. It passed with flying colours!

#sewnshownseated with a difference!

The small print:
The Challenge: March, Comfort at Home
What the item is: Removed excess length from my 1911 corset
How it fits the challenge: A corset would only have been seen inside the home, and being able to sit down in it definitely makes it more comfortable!
Material: Coutil for the corset, synthetic satin for the bias trim
Pattern: 1911 corset from Norah Waugh’s Corsets and Crinolines, slightly modified
Year: c 1911
Notions: Cotton eyelet lace for trimming, flat steels, steel busk
How historically accurate is it? The pattern is from an actual corset albeit subsequently modified, and the materials are accurate apart from the synthetic satin, so I would say 70%
Hours to complete: About 10, a fair amount of which was unpicking stitching and removing two eyelets. This had to be done carefully to minimise damage to the garment and make sure that the materials could be re-used
First worn: Just for photos
Total cost: £7.20 for the new, shorter, steels, everything else was reused

The corset is now wearable, but it still has some fit issues. I'm not sure how many of these are down to my inexperience when I made it, and how many are due to the passage of time. My body has changed a lot in 14 years, not least through menopause. The lacing gap is now wider than is ideal for any corset. But the waist stay doesn't actually fit to my waist all the way round: there is a definite gap at the sides where the corset goes straight from ribcage to hip while my waist curves in. My original plan was to make this corset wearable so that it could form part of my 1915 ensemble, and it would still work for that. As The Dreamstress pointed out in the post referenced above, historically, plenty of women would have got by in corsets which were a less than perfect fit. But ideally, I think I need a new corset. I have the Rilla pattern from Scroop, and one of the other Historical Sew Monthly challenges is 'Bones' - watch this space!

Layers of confusion

Although I’ve taken part in a number of the Historical Sew Fortnightly challenges so far, everything I have made has either been dance-related, or relatively recent i.e. from the 1930s onwards. I don’t have any background in sewing truly historical costumes.

What I do know however is that you can make the most beautiful, period-accurate costume imaginable, but unless it is worn over the correct underwear and support garments, it will just look wrong.

Two years ago I took part in the Bridges on the Body 1911 corset sew-along, so I have the support garment, but no underwear to go with it.

My 1911 corset

The current Historical Sew Fortnightly challenge is “Under It All”, so this seemed like a good opportunity to make a start. From what I had read I thought that the items required, although numerous, were quite straightforward. From the skin outwards: chemise, open-leg drawers, corset, corset cover, petticoat. The open-leg drawers, while sounding distinctly odd by modern standards, would have been a necessity when the waistband of your pants/drawers/undies was held firmly in place by a tightly-laced corset.

The chemise and drawers could be replaced by ‘combinations’, a single garment, and the corset cover and petticoat could be replaced by a princess line slip, but the basic idea remained the same.

Then, when I was flicking through Nancy Bradfield’s Costume in Detail, I came across an illustration of 1908 underwear with the quote, “The waist-petticoat with lace insertion, and the open-leg drawers, now at knee-level, go out of use by 1910”.

? Bother.

1908 drawers and petticoat

A later page, also 1907-08, shows a pair of side-fastening knickers, which are described as “now replacing drawers”. Given that the facing page includes an illustration of the new long-line corset which extends well down the thigh, I was more mystified than ever.

A third reference to 1908 underwear shows a highly trimmed pair of open-leg combinations with the description, “This wide, open-leg style remains in use for about 2 more years”.

1908 combinations

It all seems pretty consistent: open-leg drawers were a thing of the past by 1911.

To check this I turned to one of my purchases from Hay on Wye, a 1951 edition of The History of Underclothes by Drs C Willet and Phillis Cunnington.

Love the lace-design cover!

As well as plenty of illustrations and informative text, the later chapters at least include quotes, (often highly entertaining) from periodicals of the time. For example, among gentlemen in 1900, “the striped, coloured or piqué collar almost invariably bespeaks the bounder”.

Quite. But bounders aside, what did the Cunningtons have to say about drawers/knickers?

Adding further to the confusion, a 1911 illustration shows a chemise with loose, below-the-knee drawers worn underneath, while another 1911 illustration shows an especially long-line corset.

Chemise worn over drawers

Very long-line corset

The text states that in the period 1909-18 although the chemise, “lost favour it by no means disappeared”. Meanwhile a quote from “The Lady” magazine in 1909, “The fashion is to replace chemise and skirt-knickers by skin-fitting combinations and silk pantalettes; but it is more amusing than words can describe to observe how frequently the fashion is ignored”, suggests that not everyone was keen to abandon open-leg drawers.

More confused than ever ('skirt-knickers' was an entirely new term) I decided to look at what was actually available to buy at the time, rather than what later commentators thought that women wore.

The National Suit and Cloak Company and Sears provided clothing by mail order right across America. It seems unlikely that their catalogues would feature much in the way of unusual clothing with limited appeal; they would concentrate on what their customers wanted.

My copy of the 1909 National Suit and Cloak Company catalogue, which is an unabridged reproduction, shows a variety of undergarments for sale. There are six different chemises and three princess slips. Corset covers and waist petticoats are both available in 27 different styles, each available in multiple sizes.

Chemises and princess slips

Just some of the many corset covers

And some of the many petticoats

Of the 18 different styles of drawers available, all but one are described as being available as “open or closed”, so clearly at this time there was a demand for both styles.

Drawers

There are only three pairs of combinations available, so presumably such garments were not particularly popular. Naturally they are “open only” are described as “Combination Drawers and Corset Cover”, so were obviously intended to be worn over the corset.

Combinations

The 1909 pages of Everyday Fashions 1909 -1920 As Pictured in Sears Catalogues show only corsets, not underwear. However the two pages of underwear from the 1912 catalogue show princess slips in almost equal numbers to underskirts and corset covers. There is only a single chemise, which seems odd as a washable layer under the corset would still be required, regardless of what was worn over it. Of course, this apparent lack of choice in chemises may be due to which pages were selected for the book from the original 1912 catalogue.

The one ‘Combination Suit’ featured is described as ‘corset cover and drawers” so it must have been worn over the corset.

Princess slips, combinations, and a single chemise

Corset covers and waist petticoats

I seem to have hit upon what was a transitional period in underwear; as fashions moved from open-leg drawers worn under the corset to closed-leg drawers or narrower knickers worn over it. After all this, my best guess is that by 1911 most women wore a chemise, a corset, and then drawers and corset cover or combinations, and finally a petticoat. However if anyone out there has more information to confirm or deny this, I'd love to hear from you!

Historical Sew Monthly - Re-Use

Because I had my graduation outfit to complete for the 13th, and I was meant to be going on holiday for a week after the ceremony, I had decided that I needed something quick and simple for the Historical Sew Monthly this month. So I chose February's challenge; Re-Use. This is defined as "Use thrifted materials or old garments or bedlinen to make a new garment. Mend, re-shape or re-trim an existing garment to prolong its life.". This seemed the perfect fit for a job that's been on my to-do list for ages; fixing my 1911 corset.

I made this corset way back in 2012, as part of a sewalong run on the now sadly defunct Bridges on the Body blog. The pattern is taken from Norah Waugh's Corsets and Crinolines.

The completed corset

At the time I didn't know much about corset making. I didn't blog about the making process in much detail, either, so I don't have any clues as to why I chose to have many of the bones ending some way below the top of the boning channels. The diagram in Corsets and Crinolines shows the bones coming to the top of the corset.

Corset pieces and bone placement

The bones end far below the top edge

The effect wasn't obvious when the corset was on the dressform, but when I wore it to photograph my Wiener Werkstätte ensemble, the unboned section buckled and rolled down. It was uncomfortable, messy, and clearly wasn't doing the corset any good.

Initially I planned to take the trim off the upper edge of the corset, cut it down to the tops of the bones, and re-apply the trim. Fortunately, before I could get round to doing this, witness2fashion wrote an excellent series of articles on the changing corseted shape from 1907 to 1914 (click on the links here for Part 1 - 1907-1910, Part 2 - 1910-1912 and Part 3 - 1912-1914). This was how I discovered that the shape of the corset wasn't the problem, it was the length of the bones.

I carefully took off the binding and trim as planned, unpicked the top flossing, and removed the bones (they were all flat steels).

This shows how the fabric had bunched up

I then measured the boning channels from the bottom flossing, and ordered new steels. Most of them were around 2.5cm / 1" longer. These were inserted and flossed, and the binding and trim sewn back on. In the picture below it's just possible to see the marks where the old bones ended.

The replacement bones in place

Please excuse the poor quality bathroom selfies which follow, and the fact that I'm wearing a tee shirt rather than my chemise underneath. I had foolishly put my tea in the oven once I'd finished sewing, and then realised that this didn't leave me much time to take the photos! Despite the quality, they show that the fit is much better.

Front view

Side view

It was only when I dug out the original images from 2012 for this post that I realised that I've sewn the eyelet trim back on wrongly - the pink satin bias underneath should be visible at the top, not the bottom. So guess what tomorrow's little job is going to be?! Despite that, I'm very pleased to have finally fixed this.

The small print:
The Challenge: February, Re-Use
What the item is: Fixing a poorly-fitting corset by replacing some of the steels which were too short
How it fits the challenge: Left as it was, the corset would wear through due to bunching and rubbing. All the existing trim was re-applied once the corrections had been made
Fabric: Coutil for the corset, synthetic satin for the bias trim
Pattern: 1911 corset from Norah Waugh's Corsets and Crinolines
Year: c1911
Notions: cotton eyelet lace for trimming, flat steels
How historically accurate is it? The pattern is from an actual corset, and the materials are accurate apart from the synthetic satin, so I would say 80%
Hours to complete: 8, a fair amount of which was unpicking. Partly because when I sew something, I don't intend for it to come apart easily, and partly because I was making sure that the materials could be re-used
First worn: Not yet
Total cost: I am only including the cost of the new steels, not the materials for the original corset, as the challenge was to fix it, not make it from scratch. £11.47.

Better late than never

Since the start of the year I have been taking part in the Bridges on the Body 1911 Corset Sew Along. The Sew Along actually ended in early March, but a broken sewing machine and wedding dress alterations (more on that soon), plus a serious rework of the corset itself, all got in the way. As a result, I have only just finished.

Finished at last!

 The Bridges on the Body blog follows the process of making all the corsets in Norah Waugh's Corsets and Crinolines. For the 1911 pattern Jo invited other people to make the corset with her. Although the book provides scale drawings of each corset, plus a line drawing of the finished item, there are no instructions. Instead Jo posted regular, detailed, step-by-step instructions of each stage as she completed it, along with wonderfully clear photographs, interspersed with illustrations of corsets and dresses of the period like these.

As if this wasn't enough, Jo was also on hand throughout to answer any queries posted on the blog. Thus we all learned how to scale and resize the pattern, make and fit a mock-up, add a waist stay and facings to the real corset, insert the busk and bone casings, and make garters

Up to the point of lacing and trying on the corset, I was pretty much on schedule. Unfortunately this was the point at which I realised that the fabric I had used for my mock-up, although a fairly sturdy cotton, had a lot more stretch in it than I had thought. The gap when the corset was laced was far too wide; so much so that the lace I had wasn't long enough to lace it, and I had to tie two laces together!

After so much work I didn't want to abandon the project, or start again from scratch. I posted a plaintive comment on the blog, and Jo came to the rescue with the suggestion that I could open up the side seam and add a panel there, along with an extra bone.

The pattern. Jo suggested adding the extra panel between pieces 3 and 4

This wasn't entirely straightforward; because I had added a waist stay I had to unpick part of each bone casing and the facings to remove the stay and replace it once the panel was added. Also, I didn't have any more of the brocaded coutil I had used, so had to make the panels from plain coutil. It was interesting to see how what started as a rectangular strip became a curved piece in the finished corset. I'm tempted to follow the flowery language of corset advertisements of the time, and describe this as "a firm side panel imparting a smooth line to the hips", rather than something which rectified an error!

Side view showing the inserted, now curved, panel

I made the garters a dusty pink satin, and bound the edges of the corset  with bias strips of the same fabric. In keeping with the illustration I added a broderie anglais trim along the top edge. Even with a further bias satin strip threaded through the eyelets I felt that the trim was too stark, so I overstitched some of the embroidery  with shades of pink embroidery silk, which I then also also used for the flossing.

1911 corset - illustration

Finally it was down to the finishing touch. The illustration shows a large bow on the corset, but while I loved the exuberance of this example from Metropolitan Museum, when I tried to make a bow from some spare bias strips, the practical side of me worried that it would ruin the line of whatever was worn over it. I definitely wanted something to finish the top edge off, so settled for a small rosette instead.

Top detail - the embellished trim and the rosette

There are a few things I would do differently next time. First, and most obvious, I would be much more careful what fabric I used for the mock-up. Second, I would wait until the mock-up was made before ordering the coutil, bones etc. Although you may think that you know what you'll need from looking at the pattern, it is only when you have an actual garment to try on that you can be really sure.

The whole thing was great fun to do, and having the schedule to work to really helped me to keep focussed, and not let other projects take over. Finally a huge, huge thank you to Jo for all the hard work, time and help she put into the Sew Along - when's the next one?!

Historical Sew Monthly - Go Green Glow-Up - part 2

Well, that took far longer than intended. Once I had completed the mock-up for my 1874 ensemble corset (you can read about that here) I ordered the fabric and other supplies - and then got completely distracted by scrubs, summer dresses, masks, and life in general. But it is now, finally, finished.

I had bought a metre of coutil, but because the supplier was running low on stock at the time, this consisted of a piece of spot broche and a piece of plain sateen coutil in the same colour. My initial plan was to use both, but I found that with careful positioning I could cut the entire thing from the sateen, so saved the broche for another project. The sateen piece was slightly on the diagonal, so I had to cut everything from a single layer, although given the need for accurate cutting I might have done this anyway. The trickiest party was making sure that I remembered to reverse all the pieces!

Everything squeezed in

I had kept the filleted shell of the purple corset to use as a reference. This turned out to be a good move because I found the pattern instructions a bit scant in places, especially as I was making a single-layer corset rather than a lined one.

I had forgotten just how long making a corset takes; the boning channels in particular seemed to go on forever. On the plus side, the eyelet-setting pliers I had bought some time ago but never used turned out to be a great improvement on the setting tool and hammer which I had used before.

Eventually I had a completed corset shell with boning channels, and tried it on.

Clearly, I am hopeless at corset-sizing. My 1911 corset came up too small, and I had to set in an extra strip of coutil down each side. This time I went the opposite way. Despite the fact that the mock-up fitted with a perfect lacing gap, the actual corset did not. Either I have lost a huge amount of weight since early April (highly improbable, given my enthusiastic 'support' of my favourite local café once it started doing cake takeaways!), or something went very wrong in the construction. Whatever the reason, I also discovered the hard way that it is really, really difficult to loosen off the laces of a fully-closed corset!

Spot the problem

Once I had finally extricated myself, I had to consider how best to remove an inch from either side of the corset. Taking the excess out of the back panels seemed like the best approach. They are large pieces and the widest unboned area of the corset, and I could reduce them without cutting and restitching the waist stay, which I didn't want to do. I unpicked the ends of the waist stay from the lacing strips, opened the seam between the back pieces and the rest of the corset, reduced the back panel, redid the seam and boning channel, and reattached the shortened waist stay.

I must say that the inside of the corset looks far neater than the inside of its predecessor.

Everything neatly finished in the right order this time

I bound the edges with purchased satin bias binding in silver grey. The original corset wasn't flossed at all; it relied on the bones being the same length as the channels and held in place by the binding. This time, in line with the instructions, the bones were shorter - and in the interim I had learned about the existence of flossing! I followed the basic instructions in Jill Salen's Corsets: Historical Patterns and Techniques, and used stashed cotton perlé thread as recommended by Julia Bremble of Sew Curvy. The bottom ends were done in cream thread to stand out, and the top ends in grey to blend in.

The corset bound and flossed

For the trim I used some vintage lace from my stash, positioned so that the grey binding just showed through the first row of the net ground. Then I finished off the top edge with a cream binding to match the lace.

Lace detail

The end result is quite a plain corset, but that is what I was aiming for. I wanted something that would look like a Victorian woman's 'everyday' corset, rather than something very ornate.

Worn over my chemise

Now with a proper lacing gap

I used the Laughing Moon pattern because I already owned it, and had some experience of making it up. However this review suggests that it is rather 'cylindrical', around the torso, and looking at the end result, I'm inclined to agree. Possibly the overbust shape gave an impression of greater fullness, but despite the fact that I have gone up a cup size since I made the purple corset, somehow my bust looks flatter in this one.

Side view, not a great shape

However in terms of what the challenge is meant to achieve, I'm very happy with it. The brief is to, "Be environmentally friendly and celebrate how your making skills have 'glowed-up' as you've used and practiced them by taking apart an early make of yours that no-longer represents your making skills, and re-making it so you’d be proud to use it.", and I certainly feel that it fits that bill. This is only the third corset I have made, and the first without any input from a tutor - either online or in person - and it terms of historical clothing it feels a world away from the purple satin corset. It is also something I will actually wear, which the purple corset was not, so that has to be an improvement.

Comparing the two

The small print:
The Challenge: November, Go Green Glow-Up
What the item is: 1874 corset
How it fits the challenge: Made by dismantling a non-HA overbust corset I made previously, and re-using as many elements as possible
Material: Sateen coutil
Pattern: Laughing Moon #100, Dore corset
Year: 1837-1899
Notions: Metal busk, bones and eyelets, cotton waist and bone tape, cotton corset lacing, purchased binding and vintage lace for trim, cotton perlé for flossing
How historically accurate is it? The pattern claims to be accurate for the period, but the binding includes synthetic fibres and the lace is vintage rather than antique, so I'd say 85%
Hours to complete: As they were spread out over more than four months, I lost count
First worn: Only for photographing
Total cost: Because of the nature of the challenge I have only included the items I bought/used from stash, not those salvaged from the original corset. These were: coutil £12, waist and bone tapes £3.13, new shorter bones for the front £1.72, eyelets and lacing £7.93 (the old lacing cord was usable but the wrong colour, so has gone to stash) binding and trimming £5.07. Total £29.85.

The effect on the stash

Next step, the bustle cage!

UFO Corner - the purple corset

I don't tend to have a big UnFinished Objects pile. Sadly this isn't down to super efficiency on my part, just that I'm more of a USO* girl. There are lengths of fabric and piles of patterns stacked up in my workroom, waiting to be used. Some of the fabrics and patterns even go together! Once I do start something though, I usually tend to finish it reasonably quickly.

Projects just waiting to be started!

There are always exceptions however. This corset was started on a day course a couple of years ago. Unfortunately most of us on the course didn't get anywhere close to finishing our corsets. Even more unfortunately, immediately afterwards Mr Tulip and I were going on holiday, so I didn't carry on with the project straight away. Occasionally I'd take a peek in the box where the bits were stored and consider trying to finish the thing, but the longer I left it, the scarier it looked.

I came across the box again recently, and having made the 1911 corset earlier in the year, suddenly it didn't look quite so scary. Then I realised that next month it will be a whole three years since I did the course, so I decided to get the corset finished before its third anniversary.

So what was I starting from?

We used the Laughing Moon Dore corset pattern, and before the course the tutor had cut out the pattern pieces for us, based on measurements we had sent her. She provided coutil, bones etc, and all we had to provide was fabric of our choice for the outer layer. Knowing nothing about corset construction, I chose a purple satin, not realising quite what a bad choice this was for a beginner.

On the day we cut out the coutil and fabric, tacked the fabric pieces to the coutil, cut out and attached the front facing, inserted the busk, sewed the pieces together, did the first fitting and made any necessary alterations. Actually that's not bad for one day, but a long way off a completed corset.

I didn't think to take any pictures before I started work again, but this was taken after I'd finished the seams and put in a couple of the boning channels.

More or less what I came home with, three years ago

The only instructions I had were a few scribbled notes on finishing the seams. These were to be covered with bone casing tape, although now I'm not sure why this was used, as there were only enough bones provided for the boning channels marked on the pattern, not for boning the seams as well. Once I'd completed the seams, I noticed that the thread I had used to sew around the busk three years ago was very different purple from what I had just sewn with, so I had to take out the busk stitching and redo it. Cue first lot of heavy sighs.

The boning channels gave me my first inkling that satin had been a Very Bad Idea. I wanted them on the inside of the corset, but if I worked with the coutil and tape uppermost, the sewing machine feed dogs marked the satin. Instead I had to tack on the casings, sew with the satin side uppermost, and hope that I didn't miss the edge of the tape. Sadly I did miss it, quite a lot. Cue second lot of heavy sighs, lots of unpicking and a few rude words.

Then I discovered that I didn't have enough casing tape to do all the casings. I had to unpick the tape from the longest seam, over the bust, and replace it with ordinary seam binding. This took several attempts to get right, and when I finally managed it I discovered that on one side I had managed to catch the waist stay into the stitching, at completely the wrong angle. Third lot of heavy sighs, more unpicking and some very rude words indeed.

All this unpicking left a few marks on the satin, and the rows of stitching for the casings and to finish the seams provided more evidence of why satin had been a poor choice. What had previously been a smooth and glossy top layer was now very wrinkled, and the shine of the fabric really emphasises any lumps and bumps.

Smooth without boning channels, wrinkly with them

Adding the back facing made me realise that flat lining the coutil to the fashion fabric had been another Very Bad Idea as it made no allowance for turn of cloth, so the coutil is now slightly bunched up on the inside. I had however finally got something resembling a corset.

On the way to a finished corset

There is one plus point to all of this frustration. When I made the 1911 corset, cutting the holes for the grommets took ages because I simply didn't apply enough pressure. When it comes to hitting this one very hard with a hammer, I don't think I need worry about holding back!

Grommet holes marked, pass me the hammer!

* - UnStarted Objects, in case you hadn't guessed

Historical Sew Monthly - Go Green Glow-Up - part 1

I'm carrying on with two of the elements of last month's HSM contribution - working with something I have already made, and corsetry.

The next part of my 1874 ensemble is the corset, and I'm making it for the November challenge; Go Green Glow-Up. This is defined as "Be environmentally friendly and celebrate how your making skills have ‘glowed-up’ as you’ve used and practiced them by taking apart an early make of yours that no-longer represents your making skills, and re-making it so you’d be proud to use it. It can be as elaborate as a total re-make, or as simple as getting the ribbons or buttons you didn’t have time to source at first.".

I'm actually taking apart something I completed seven years ago! This corset was my contribution to the Historical Sew Fortnightly (as it was then) Lace and lacings challenge way back in June 2013, but I had actually started in in November 2009, on a short course.

The 2013 corset

This course was the first time I’d tried corset-making. We used the Laughing Moon Doré corset pattern, but adapted to make a modern overbust corset with a modesty panel.

Back view showing the modesty panel

All in all it is a strange hybrid, I suspect more intended to be worn as a fashion garment than as a historical corset. It was only years later, when I bought the pattern in an attempt to actually finish the thing, that I discovered that the version we had started on the course was missing many of boning channels. I added these, but the end result was very messy as it meant that some channels were under the waist tape, and some were over it.

Boning channel chaos

As boned bodices and pseudo-corsets are not really 'me', the end result has languished unworn in my wardrobe for almost seven years. It no longer fits me, even if I did want to wear it. My 1911 corset was made between starting and completing this project, and I did start a third one, but then Things Happened, and it was abandoned.

In the meantime, I have read so much about corsetry in other people's blogs that I feel I understand the subject much better. So when I started my 1874 project it seemed like a good opportunity to try making the Doré corset properly. And once I saw the November challenge, I decided to dismantle the unworn purple corset and reuse the busk and bones.

I had kept the pattern pieces which the course tutor had provided, and could even remember where they were! Although they were supposedly based on our measurements, when I compared them to the Doré pattern I discovered that they were exactly the same apart from extension for overbust. So I was surprised how well the original corset had fitted me, given that I have a short torso. I redrafted the pattern to my new size, took off ½" from the bodice length, and added ½" at the bottom so that the busk and bones will still fit. I have a long crotch depth anyway (basically, my waist is in the wrong place between my bust and hips!) so this won't be a problem.

I then made a mockup in calico, and even reused some of the old bone casing tape for the curved boning channels. The pattern needs a few minor tweaks, but overall I'm pretty happy with it.

The mockup worn over my chemise

Side and back views, with pinned-on lacing strips

I have ordered some coutil, and while I wait for that to arrive, I shall make a start on my April dress for the Vintage Sew A Dress A Month. It's also one of my #UseNine2020 choices.

Butterick 2535, from 1943