Victorian Update - Corset and Petticoat
I have progressed a lot on my corset and it is now nearly finished. The eyelets were all sewn by hand, getting progressively better with practice. This is what gave me OOS, but they look really cool.... See how much better the second ones are.
I wasn't sure whether there should be boning over the hip along the waist cos it looked hard todo, but in the pictures there was stitching along there, so I put some in
between the material along the seamI couldn't insert it because it is the seam where all the vertical pieces meet the horizonal hip gore piece and it was too messy. So I sewed some ribbon along the inside and put it in there. It is very messy, but seems to be working, mostly.
I couldn't get a busk, so am using hook and eye tape. The eyes are juuuust poking out of the material, with the tape part sewn in between the lining and outer material, with the edge whip-stitched up. The hook bit wouldn't have worked like that. The hook and eye tape kind of folds in half with the hooks or eyes in the middle, so with the hooks one half of the tape is sewn on the inside of the corset, and the other half is sewn in between the layers, wrapped around the edge. Hard to explain. Meh. Hopefully this will work ok, but I think the hooks and eyes are going to be really hard to do up and undo.
Now I am sewing the ribbon along the edges, after trimming the cable ties and trinming off the half inch extra I added on to let it fray without fraying into the bit I want, and have done one edge of 4. (two tops and two bottoms). Only need to do the other three edges and it is done!!
I have also been doing my petticoat. I cut all the pieces, checked to see if it looked like it would work pinning it to my dress dummy (which I have decided to call Val...). It is mostly flat at the front, a little gathered at the sides and a lot gathered at the back. Actually, pleated, not gathered. I pleated it by just pinning it onto the waistband with it hanging on the dress dummy and then hand sewing it while it was still there. Worked really well and probably easier than trying to make sure all the pleats stay in the right place and so on while machine sewing it. My method for pleating - pin centre of material section to centre of waistband section it corresponds to. Pin centre of two halves of material to centre of two halves of waistband. Etc, etc, until material used up in suitably small pleats, folding material so it lies flat in actual pleats. See pictures.
Then it looked like there was more material on one side than the other so I shuffled them around. It wasn't really possible for there to be more on one side since I'd pinned the middle to the middle, it was probably just that my pleats weren't evenly pleated, but whatever. Look how pretty the little stitches are.
At the front there was two little darts/tucks instead of pleats.
In between testing the pleating and actually sewing the pleating I did the ruffles, but it was easier to explain the pleating all in one. After various dramas cutting the ruffles, I eventually almost ended up with the pieces the right length. Somehow, the bottom tier was actually nearly twice as long as it should have been. So, the bottom tier is wrapped around on the side panel as well, which is kind of nice since there will be a ruffle along the bottom of the dress that will go over it, and it is supposed to be fuller at the sides, so this kind of matches. And it goes with the flat at the front, lots at the back and some at the sides idea.
And look how awesome it is with all those gathered ruffles. It opens at the front-side between two panels and will probably button closed. It is actually a little too small but hopefully with corset this will be rectified. Or I could just not close it completely.
To make it stick out a little more and not be too squashed by the skirt, I put three rows of doubled-up jute twine in the hem (handstitched, it seemed easier).
And since that is so awesome, I am threading another doubled-up jute twine throught the hem on the tiers. See the sticking-outness difference? So much cooler and smoother. I haven't finished that yet, the needle is still attached and so on in the first tier. But the petticoat is very nearly finished too!!
Of course, it is possible I will end up with only underwear and no actual dress at this rate. It is also possible that if I get on with my karate training, then my corset will be too big when I have to wear it. We'll see how it is when I really try it on properly.
I wasn't sure whether there should be boning over the hip along the waist cos it looked hard todo, but in the pictures there was stitching along there, so I put some in
between the material along the seamI couldn't insert it because it is the seam where all the vertical pieces meet the horizonal hip gore piece and it was too messy. So I sewed some ribbon along the inside and put it in there. It is very messy, but seems to be working, mostly.I couldn't get a busk, so am using hook and eye tape. The eyes are juuuust poking out of the material, with the tape part sewn in between the lining and outer material, with the edge whip-stitched up. The hook bit wouldn't have worked like that. The hook and eye tape kind of folds in half with the hooks or eyes in the middle, so with the hooks one half of the tape is sewn on the inside of the corset, and the other half is sewn in between the layers, wrapped around the edge. Hard to explain. Meh. Hopefully this will work ok, but I think the hooks and eyes are going to be really hard to do up and undo.
Now I am sewing the ribbon along the edges, after trimming the cable ties and trinming off the half inch extra I added on to let it fray without fraying into the bit I want, and have done one edge of 4. (two tops and two bottoms). Only need to do the other three edges and it is done!!
I have also been doing my petticoat. I cut all the pieces, checked to see if it looked like it would work pinning it to my dress dummy (which I have decided to call Val...). It is mostly flat at the front, a little gathered at the sides and a lot gathered at the back. Actually, pleated, not gathered. I pleated it by just pinning it onto the waistband with it hanging on the dress dummy and then hand sewing it while it was still there. Worked really well and probably easier than trying to make sure all the pleats stay in the right place and so on while machine sewing it. My method for pleating - pin centre of material section to centre of waistband section it corresponds to. Pin centre of two halves of material to centre of two halves of waistband. Etc, etc, until material used up in suitably small pleats, folding material so it lies flat in actual pleats. See pictures.
Then it looked like there was more material on one side than the other so I shuffled them around. It wasn't really possible for there to be more on one side since I'd pinned the middle to the middle, it was probably just that my pleats weren't evenly pleated, but whatever. Look how pretty the little stitches are.
At the front there was two little darts/tucks instead of pleats.
In between testing the pleating and actually sewing the pleating I did the ruffles, but it was easier to explain the pleating all in one. After various dramas cutting the ruffles, I eventually almost ended up with the pieces the right length. Somehow, the bottom tier was actually nearly twice as long as it should have been. So, the bottom tier is wrapped around on the side panel as well, which is kind of nice since there will be a ruffle along the bottom of the dress that will go over it, and it is supposed to be fuller at the sides, so this kind of matches. And it goes with the flat at the front, lots at the back and some at the sides idea.
And look how awesome it is with all those gathered ruffles. It opens at the front-side between two panels and will probably button closed. It is actually a little too small but hopefully with corset this will be rectified. Or I could just not close it completely.
To make it stick out a little more and not be too squashed by the skirt, I put three rows of doubled-up jute twine in the hem (handstitched, it seemed easier).
And since that is so awesome, I am threading another doubled-up jute twine throught the hem on the tiers. See the sticking-outness difference? So much cooler and smoother. I haven't finished that yet, the needle is still attached and so on in the first tier. But the petticoat is very nearly finished too!!
Of course, it is possible I will end up with only underwear and no actual dress at this rate. It is also possible that if I get on with my karate training, then my corset will be too big when I have to wear it. We'll see how it is when I really try it on properly.
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