Wraith Queen: The bodice - Step One

Step One: Drafting the pattern. This I am doing from scratch also. I have a couple of articles I had made before that I thought of using as a base, but then thought, what the heck! I'm pretty much making every other part of this from scratch! Why not this too! Besides, I have never had to make something so close fitting before without the use of a store bought pattern. This will be a learning experience!

Having made corsets before, I am already familiar with how they are constructed. This is going to be a little less formal and structured, but the principle is the same. It is close fitting, and needs to have lines that make sense. This is more of an underbust style. I started off with the front centre section, making that shape the way I want. It is probably the flattest piece of the garment, so it makes sense to start there. And the most visible, so you want it to be perfect.

To start, I cut a piece of paper that was bigger than the piece I was going to make, but not too much bigger. I drew a centre line, and matched up the top with where I wanted it to sit on by belly. Just under the bra line. Pinning that to the form, I measured and drew out the rough shape I wanted, cinching in at the waist to enhance the curves, and flaring out at the bottom. Pulling the piece off the form, and placing it on a flat surface, I measured and straightened/refined the lines, until I was happy. I then cut it out, except for the bottom, which I left loose.

You can see in the picture what I mean. I left the bottom line until the very end, so I could shape the bottom in one sweep. This keeps the line consistent between all the pieces. Each piece followed the same steps, pinning tissue larger than what I wanted, drew the lines, refined, cut, pinned back on, and moved to the next one, all the way around. I drafted the final back piece the same way as the front, with a centre line drawn to keep it even.


Once I had all the pieces done, I went back to the bottom line and drew the even curving line I wanted.

Happy with the shape of the line, I cut the dangling pieces off.

Then I numbered all the pieces, marked the waist line, and drew a arrows pointing up on each piece, so when I am cutting my material and putting it all back together, I know which is the bottom and top of the pattern! That is important. When sewing something where all the pieces look very similar, you need to know which end is up. I learned that when sewing my first corset! One piece upside down and it won't fit anymore!!

There we have it. One hour later, I have my first draft of the pattern for my bodice. My next step is to cut it out of scrap fabric, baste it together, and try it on. If the fit isn't quite right, you can keep refining it, testing it, refining it, until you have it right. I have lots of scrap fabric to test this on, and I would rather waste a couple of dollars of cheep remnant bin stuff than my expensive vinyl!!


My sewing room foreman watched from her office chair...