I finally stopped talking myself out of cutting the expensive stuff. I don't remember how much I paid for the pinstripe, but I didn't buy heaps of it, so it couldn't have been that cheap. And of course, the coutil, which costs more than any other fabric I have ever purchased... But yeah, I finally did it. I quit making mock ups and went in for the real deal.
99.9% of the instructions came from Lucy's Corsetry videos. She has fantastic explanations of putting everything together, inserting the busk and waist tape, grommets, bones, everything. I have learned some wonderful lessons from her videos.
I had planned to do an instructional entry on how I put this together, but I don't feel that I am comfortable enough or familiar enough with the process to properly explain anything that I did. But, here are some photos and brief descriptions of my personal journey building my first real corset.
Here are my pattern pieces. I have labelled them with their number (1 is the front panel, 6 is the back panel). These are the stitch line pieces.
I have two versions of each piece. The blue ones include my seam allowance. This allows me to trace everything out as close as possible to reduce waste. I traced these out first, and then placed the stitch line pieces inside and traced them.
My pieces are all nice and snug. I kept the waist line perpendicular to the stripes on each piece so that my pin stripes will be nicely vertical on the finished corset, and not at funny angles. My pieces also alternate direction to reduce twisting. I did the same with all my layers. Because the pattern on this fabric doesn't have an "up and down", I can do this with the fashion layer too. Obviously, if your fashion layer has an image with a definite "up and down", you can't do this with that layer! But doing so with the interior layers will still prevent twisting in the finished corset.
Here is my pinstripe. I tried really hard to make sure that my pieces were straight with the stripes. I did tidy this up, as I noticed that my front edge on this piece was a little off. My chalk made a huge mess all over my table... white dust everywhere. I used the chalk on the fashion layer so it will disappear like a ninja... without a trace (that one is for you, Char!). White pencil crayon was used on the coutil layer, because that is going to be hidden by the lining, and I don't want to lose my lines after I have manhandled the fabric.
A bunch of the pieces pinned. I carefully pinned exactly on the line, matching the waist line and stitch lines on both layers.
I labelled every piece. How ever you label it, as long as it makes sense to you the next day, next week, or whenever you come back to it next, have at 'er. For me, an arrow pointing to the top, and two numbers worked well.
The first number is where the piece fits in sequence. I have 6 pieces per side, with 1 being at the front, 6 being at the back. The second number indicates if the piece is on the left or right side. I didn't want to fuss with "is right when I am wearing it or looking at it?" or any other ambiguity, I decided that one side would be "1" and the other side "2". So, my pieces are all numbered 1-1, 2-1, 3-1, etc for one side, and 1-2, 2-2, 3-2, etc for the other side. My lining pieces will be marked the same way, but with and "L" added so I know that those are lining pieces. That is important for the front and back panels, as they will have the same pinstripe fabric as the outer layer and I don't want to confuse the two. This method worked well for me. Find what ever works for you. But do label them. If you remember one thing, let it be that. Label your pieces so you know what side and what sequence and what direction. I have sewn pieces in upside down or in the wrong order before. It was awful.
So, everything is cut, pinned, and ready to sew. That will be next time! We don't need 30 photos of black blobs in one post... lets split them into two! Tee hee!
No comments:
Post a Comment