Corset Alterations and Some Mythbusting

Post-alteration, and 2" narrower. Much better.
You can see photos of the original a couple of
posts back on this blog.

Hello! I am writing to you this evening from Glasgow, Scotland, which is my new home for the next 12 months or so. I'm here doing my masters degree in Museum Studies: Dress and Textile History, which is very exciting. I had about a week of turnaround time between flying home from Williamsburg (*sniffle*) and flying here (hooray!) so it's all been a bit of a whirlwind. However, somewhere in that whirlwind I have managed to get some stuff done!

First up is the alteration I just finished on my 1876 blue silk corset. I loved the shape from the front, but the back made me unhappy. The lacing gap was about 2" too large if I laced it so the gap was equidistant from top to bottom, even though the waist and hips actually fit quite well. The problem was the lack of ease through the upper ribs and shoulder blades. This was preventing the corset from pulling as tightly around the waist as it should have done, and generally making it...well, wrong. It wasn't really uncomfortable, and it looked okay; it just didn't sit right. I probably could have left it, and it would have been functional, and looked good from most angles. But it wasn't what I intended, and I knew it could be far, far better. And I am, above all else, a perfectionist, and sometimes I am a slave to my own perfectionism. Once the idea is in my brain, it's going to happen whether I like it or not.

So I fixed it.

The original

Post-alteration

See what a difference that makes? The waist isn't actually smaller, but it looks sharper because my ribs now have room. That myth about squashing ribs to make the waist smaller? It's ridiculous! The more ease - *extra* room - you give to your ribs and the top edge of your corset, the more extreme the waist looks without lacing down far at all, and the more room for flesh displacement there is, which means you can actually lace your waist down further if you've put extra room above and below it.

Post-alteration, my corset now actually looks a lot closer in silhouette to my inspiration corset (even though my figure is quite different from the one the extant example was intended for, with my long waist, wide ribs, and lack of bust).

Museum of London, c. 1851-62. Image number 002188.

So anyways, I'm very happy with the results of all of this. Here are a few more photos for you. I just bought my ticket to Prior Attire's Victorian Ball in Bath this spring, and I'm planning to wear this corset under my gown, so it will actually get some use.

                         

Other than that, I'm working on some 18th century stuff - just finished a wool petticoat today and started working on a muslin cap, and will be beginning a quilted petticoat sometime next week (wheeee! finally!). I'll hopefully be posting some photos soon from a photoshoot some friends and I have planned for this weekend. Until then, you can find more frequent updates on facebook at Isabel Northwode Costumes.

Blue 1876 Corset Finished

Well, the corset is finally finished. A month after the February challenge due date, but oh well.
I'll probably post another entry about the mockup process later, but for now:

The Challenge: February - Blue
Fabric: Cotton herringbone coutil, factory cotton (lining), cotton twill (boning channels), silk taffeta
Pattern: this one, from the De Gracieuse archives
Year: 1876
Notions: Flat steel boning, a few cable ties, steel busk and grommets, white silk embroidery floss
How historically accurate is it? 85%? There are a few plastic bones where flexibility was needed, and the original likely contained whalebone rather than steel, which, although period-correct, is not really ideal for the curves of this shape. Additionally, because I had to use black coutil, I had to line it in factory cotton, which I have never seen in an original.
Hours to complete: Too many.
First worn: Today, for photos, in my living room
Total cost: About $30 for the bones and busk, and $15 for the silk.

Here, at the Museum of London, is my inspiration corset (there is a whole post about this further back, including a description of the changes I made to the pattern and my reasons for using an 1850s inspiration with an 1850s pattern).

And here is my corset:

Please ignore both the Frankenlacing and my slightly odd posture in this photo;
I had limited time to get in place before the camera timer finished. =P

      

     

I forgot to measure my waist while it was on this morning, so I have no measurements for you. Woops. But here's a comparison with my 1890s corset, which has an outside waist measurement of about 24" and an inner measurement of 23", with my natural waist being 26".

As you can see, my ribs are far less swoopy in this corset than in my red corset: a conscious choice. The next project I have in mind for this corset is an 1840s gown, and I wanted to see if I could get the very long, straight torso that I see in fashion plates. I don't know if I'll repeat the experiment; I like having more breathing room. But I actually find the lower waist more comfortable, so the next corset will likely combine the blue corset's lower waist (especially in back) and added hip flare with the red corset's wider ribs.

Corset try-on, and TV show musings

Half-done the flossing (well, maybe more like 2/3...woops. Meant to do a fitting before this). Before I finish flossing and binding it and go past the point of no return, I wanted to do a quick try-on to make sure that everything was as it should be.

It fits great, and so far it's very comfortable! There's about a 4" lacing gap in back, which is fine - it's the end of the day, and I can usually lace down about 1" further if I do it in the morning, and lacing gaps tend to shrink as a corset gets broken in. So as long as I remember to put it on periodically and mold the fibers by wearing it for an hour or two, it will fit better and better.

My main concern was that the only available busk was about 1" longer than I'd have strictly preferred, and I was worried that it would be uncomfortable to sit. But all is good!

You'll have to excuse the awful selfies; there was no one else home to take photos. =P Thank goodness for split busks! I had to put in two laces to get it wide enough to do myself, though. >.>

I forgot to measure the waist when it was on, so the final reduction measurement will have to wait. Probably around 3-4" on the outside.

Anyways, more flossing tomorrow and then binding, and it's done!

Corset progress and some natural dyeing

Well, I'm about 3 weeks late on HSF February: Blue, but I'm still plugging away. Here's what the corset looks like now (although I've actually finished removing all that white basting since taking the photo).

This is the first photo I've managed to take which is actually true to the fabric colour; all the others have turned out either way too navy or way too purple. It matches my inspiration corset very well. I'm hoping to finish the boning channels tonight, set grommets in tomorrow, and then do the bindings and the flossing later this week. That might be a bit of a pipe dream, though. We'll see how it goes.

In other news, dye class has finally turned its attention to natural dyes, and I've managed to wrangle an 18th century-colour-recreation element into the fairly strict parameters of the final project. In the mean time I've been sneaking little bundles of merino embroidery/lace-weight yarn into each of the class sample dye baths, to build up my library of natural-dyed embroidery flosses.

Clockwise from top left: onion skins, tea bags (very high concentration), cutch, lac, quebracho, orange marigold flowers.

I'm now collecting images on pinterest of embroidered petticoats, quilted petticoats, jumps, and aprons. I think I'm going to dye some combination of silk yardage and flosses in order to make a couple of petticoat projects. The only problem is that all the silk petticoats are embroidered in silk floss (of course), and only linen petticoats seem to get wool crewelwork - and this seem to be with fairly chunky yarns. My merino floss is a very thin, light 2-ply, with a fair bit of sheen, and actually resembles my spun silk yarn more than the wool embroidery flosses I'm seeing. I may end up dyeing both the merino and the spun silk (filament silk is better, but I can't afford it), and making several petticoats. So far, the plan is:

- Weld over-dyed with indigo for some emerald green silk yardage, to be used for a quilted petticoat based the one in Dalhousie's collection (which is currently my blog background image)
- Unknown dyestuffs for some "London Red" silk yardage, to be used as ribbons/puffs on caps, bonnets, and sundry accessories
- A selection of period colours in both wool and silk flosses, in order to embroider a petticoat/several petticoats/jumps/an apron/whatever I end up with enough floss of the correct fiber type to make.

Anyways, things to think about. If anyone has two cents to add about 18th century embroidery in wool or silk, natural dyestuffs, fun things to embroider (things which will be seen, preferably - I'm not embroidering pockets and under-petticoats until the outer stuff is entirely encrusted in polychrome wonder), or other embroidery/dyeing-related advice, I welcome your input!

HSF February: Blue - Mid-Victorian Corset

Now that the Regency ball is done, I've had time to work on my next project: an 1876 corset of blue silk, inspired by this one from the 1850s:

Now, obviously this corset is from the 1850s, and mine is from the 1870s, and I'll also be wearing it under my 1840s gown. Unfortunately I am a student and I don't have the resources to make as many corsets as I would really like to, so this is the way it has to be. The shape of the 1870s corset is quite similar to that of the earlier versions, and I've modified it a bit in order to get it closer to the intended silhouette. Moreover, the construction is not so different: it, like the 1850s corset above, has two bust gussets, a dip at the center front bustline, deep, low hips with a lot of flare, and a sharp curve in at the waist. I unfortunately don't have the bust required to pull off such a beautifully curvy silhouette, and my bust gussets can't extend so far down towards the waist, but there's evidence for shorter gussets, too, in corsets of all the periods I mentioned.

It is re-drafted from a pattern in the 1876 issue of De Gracieuse, which is all in Dutch and lacks a high-resolution pattern online. Yay! (It's the bottom left-hand corset in the image linked above, but it won't be as long in front and it won't be quite so curvy at the bust - in fact, it will look a little more like the bottom right-hand corset.) Before the Automobile has actually made the same corset in the past, but I think our two versions will come out looking significantly different. It's always interesting to see how the same pattern morphs and changes on different body types.

I don't have photos of the mockup on me, but here are shots of it lying flat:

 

As you can see, I had to extend the waist a fair bit (about 2.5", actually - but I think I might take a half inch out again and extend it up at the top instead) as I have quite a long torso, both in modern terms and compared with smaller Victorian dimensions. I only extended it on one side, because I still need to cut a proper mockup in coutil, bone it with actual bones instead of loosely-stitched-on cable ties, and use a busk and full-length lacing (the only lacing strips I had on hand are very short).

Thus, I consider this part way between a draping session and a first mockup - it was really just to get the pattern right, and now I'll begin actually fitting it.

Mockup 2.0 will be done in coutil with some sort of plain-weave fashion fabric because this is the only way to get a really accurate read on how the final corset will behave. Like the final corset, the pieces will be roll-basted into slightly domed shapes before being stitched together, to help them conform to the curves required of them without wrinkling.

I believe I underestimated the time this will take, as my last corset was the red 1890s, which had no gussets and thus needed only one mockup after the initial re-drafting process. Altogether it took only a week from drafting to flossing; I've already spent three-ish days on this one. So it might not be done in time for February's challenge, but I'll give it a shot, and at least post my progress.

More soon!