For the sake of simplicity, I’ll be demonstrating the assembly of the corset using the right side only. Whatever is done to the right side, I do to the left side at the same time.

Flatlining

The twill and sateen pieces need to be combined before I can assemble the corset. The hip gussets (h, i and j) are easy to do first: I pin the pieces together and stitch around their edges as shown:

Piece a is already secured on the embroidered side. Stitch along both sides of the slash in the top edge. Do the same for the slash in b. Flatline stitch along the edge of f, on the side that joins to h, and along the edge of g that joins to j. After flatlining, sew h to f and j to g with a 3/8” (1cm) seam. I used  Laura Loft’s guide to wrinkle free gores and gussets, in which she suggests marking off the middle of the gusset tip (3/8” from either side) and stopping my lines of stitching at this point. (Whatever you do to the outer layer, do the same to your inner coutil layer.)
Inserting c into a and d into b is a little trickier…

Inserting the Gores

Once again, I found Laura’s tutorial very helpful. Once they gores have been inserted, press the seams flat, then topstitch. 

Trim off as much extra fabric from the back as possible, to cut down on bulk at these seams. Also, if you find that the top edges are a little jagged, carefully pin the corresponding left and right sides together (right sides facing each other) and trim them flat.

Obviously, from the photo of the topstitched gores, you tell see that this is my first attempt at adding gores to a corset. They’re a little wrinkly at the bottom points, but I’m probably not the first to run into this problem: decorative flossing  (as seen in my previous article’s historical examples) seems to have been added to most corset gores, not only to beautify, but to smooth out the fabric and to reinforce the end of the slash at the bottoms of the gores. I used a decorative two-toned flossing pattern with a little flower on the outside, and a simpler design inside, for the coutil layer.

 

Securing the Waist Tape and Inserting the Busk

Remove the lines of stitching ½” (13mm) away from the front edges of the embroidered a pieces. Cut two lengths of twill tape, half the size of the corset’s finished waist size plus an extra inch or two. (In this case, my corset’s waist measurement is 23¼” (60.3cm), so I cut my twill tape into 13” (33cm) lengths.) Find the waistline, and tacking-stitch the twill tape to both sides of coutil pieces a as shown.
At the front (busk) edge, I stitch the right-hand inner and outer a pieces with their right sides together, sewing with a ½” (13mm) seam (which should line up with the holes left by the stitching that was just removed). Poke the busk studs through the fabric using an awl, then hand-baste tightly along the edge of the busk bone. Remember to include the waist tape when basting.

Mark the locations of the busk loops on the left a piece,  using lines drawn on the busk hardware as a guide.	The areas where the loops will poke through must be skipped over while stitching.	Insert the looped busk hardware and hand-baste it into place.

Flatlining 2
The busk has been installed, and c, d, h and j have been sewn into their places. Now I need to flatline the remaining edges of the sateen/twill pieces, allowing 1/16” (2mm) on the sateen layers for turn-of-cloth. (Each of these edges will eventually become a casing for a spiral steel bone.)
The sateen has now been flatlined to its twill base on all vertical edges. The sateen will appear loose due to turn-of-cloth allowance, and to the extra space previously allowed for the eventual addition of cords.

Assembly

As you assemble the corset pieces, apply each step to both sides of the corset (inner and outer layers). The assembly of the corset pieces should be done with a short, tight stitch for strength. (I recommend a double line of stitching along each of these main vertical seams.) As always, remember to stitch from the top edge downwards. First, attach gusset i to the side of f, and then attach g to the edge made up of f&i. This will become the side section of the corset.
Press this combination of five pieces so that the seams are flattened, as shown. As this is the curved hip portion of the corset, you’ll need to iron on a curved surface such as a tailor’s ham.	Next, sew gusset·e to piece·a.
Combine piece b with the edge created by e&a. Press the seams flat and trim the edges of all e pieces by 1/8” (3mm).
Your two front halves should now look something like this (as seen from the front and back).

 

At this point, the corset will have three major sections per side: front inner and outer layers attached at the busk (a, b, c, d, and e), outer and inner sides not yet attached to one another (f, g, h, i, and j), and back inner and outer (k) pieces attached to one another along the lacing edges. Most of the sateen/twill layers will look awful and lumpy, but the top layer will smooth out once the bones and cords are in place.

Working from front to back, it’s a good idea to complete the bone channels, cording, and topstitching on the forward portions before moving on to anything else.

First, hand-baste the inner layer to the outer layer along the seams, bringing your basting thread from the inside to the outside along the seam lines to hold the layers together at the exact same points. (The top and bottom edges of the corset should be lined up at every seam, and the bottom point of gusset·e on the outside should correspond to its position on the inside lining.)

Remember to include the waist tape when basting down these seams, securing it at the waist height on the right and left sides of the corset.

Topstitch down either side of gusset·e:	Sew channels for the spiral steel bones and insert them.
Insert cords between the twill and sateen layers on either side of the bone channels. It’s difficult to get the cords through such a tight space at the top of the corset, but I find that  tying the cord to a spare steel bone (adding a pointed tip made of tape, if necessary,) makes it much easier.

 

Push the cords firmly against the bone channels. You may want to tack one or both ends of the cords with basting stitches, to prevent them from being pulled out.

Finally, stitch the cords into their own channels, making sure that they are the same width on the right side and the left side of the corset. (I’ll confess that it took me a few tries to get all of my bone and cord channels straight, even, and equal on the right and left. Plenty of stitches were unpicked and re-sewn, but eventually I got it right!)

Machine-sew also along the edge of the busk, and remove the basting stitches there.

These views of the outside and inside of the front piece show how the basting at the seams helped to line up the inner and outer layers, so the topstitching is positioned more or less the same on the inside as it is on the outside. Also note how the waist tape is now secured by six neat lines of vertical stitching.  

Now the side sections can be attached to the front sections (sateen/twill to sateen twill and coutil to coutil). These new panels will be given the same treatment as a and b when adding bones and cords. The same basting, waist tape placement, topstitching, boning, and cording principles apply. Refer to Fig. 2 for the placement of the bones and cords. (I didn’t do the boning and cording on panel g until after k was attached.)

The back panels can now be added. Machine stitch the outside k pieces to the outside g&j edges. (If you’re a worrier· like me, you may want to quickly lace the corset up and test the fit at this stage.) It will not be possible to stitch the inside coutil k pieces to their corresponding g&j edges in the usual manner. Instead, hand-baste all the g&j pieces together along the inside edges as shown. Press a 3/8” (1cm) seam along the unfinished coutil edge of k, and hand-sew the inside coutil layers together with small hand-stitches.
The last few bones and cords can now be added in. Once again, baste the seams together (including the waist tape) before topstitching the channels. Lastly, secure the ends of the waist tape to the back of the corset with a generous number of small hand-stitches. One of the problems I ran into while boning and cording was an excess of sateen fabric along the back edge of piece b. This was easily fixed by adding a second cord. (Although there is only one cord in this location according to Fig. 2, I wanted to fix my error in a way that would match the corset’s design and save me the time and frustration of unpicking all those stitches.)

 

 

Making Bias Binding

I make my own bias binding out of the sateen fabric, to match the corset. The only tools needed are a rotary blade and cutting mat, a clear quilting ruler, and an iron:·

• Measure to find the longest edge of your corset: add a couple inches to determine the length of your fabric strips. (The longest edge of my corset was about 19”, so I made my strips 21” long.)
•  Decide how wide you want the face of the bias binding to be, and multiply that by 4 for your total width. (I wanted 3/8” (1cm) binding, so the total unpleated width of my strips was 1½” (38mm).)
•  Cut strips of the fashion/outer fabric on the true bias (at a 45° angle from the selvedge).
•  Fold the strips in half and press (I spray the fabric with water before ironing, to get a nice crisp steamed fold).
•  Turn the edges inward so that they come to within 1/16” (2mm) of the centre fold, and press firmly (taking care not to flatten the centre fold).
•  Fold the bias binding closed, and iron them once more for good measure.

 

If the fabric is quite thin, you may want to add a second strip of fabric inside to give it a smooth base: I cut bias strips of twill that were the same length and a little less than half the width of my sateen strips. I folded and pressed the twill in half, saving it for later insertion beneath my sateen strips (on the bottom edges only.)
Binding the Edges Hand-baste the bias strips to all four edges of the corset as shown. I find that this is helpful in keeping my binding exactly where I want it. Also, baste the twill strips to the bottom edges as shown. (No twill is needed at the top, because the binding there will be covered with lace.) Topstitch in blue along the edges.
I topstitch along the upper edge, then lay the cotton lace over the binding and stitch it in place with blue thread (directly over my first line of topstitching). Finish the ends by trimming away any excess, folding the bias and lace towards the back, and securing everything with hand-stitches. Whip-stitch the inside edge of the bias to the coutil layer.
On the lower edge, I baste my folded twill strips into place, so that the lumps created by the ends of the cords and bone channels will not be so apparent through the thin sateen bias binding. I topstitch very carefully along the edge of the binding with blue thread. The ends and inside edges are finished in the same way as the top.
The last four grommets can finally be set into their holes.

Flossing At this point, flossing is added to the tips of the gussets, so that they coordinate with the gores. I didn’t sew all the way through to the inside, as these stitches are mostly decorative. The tips of the bones can be flossed as well. Apply the design to the top of each bone, push the bones firmly upwards so that they are not loose in the channels, then do the bottom tips. This is the first time I’ve ever flossed a corset, and I must say that it was much easier to do than I had first thought it would be. The end result was stunning, and I think that the corset would have looked rather incomplete without it.

 

The Finished Corset

Thread the ribbon through the holes at the back. Finally, the corset is done!

The corset fits beautifully. Mr. Fanning was right about the increased comfort and good fit provided by this design’s twelve “small gore-pieces.” The garment gives me about four inches of waist reduction when fully closed, and its many bones and cords support and shape the figure nicely. (One of the many reasons I love corsets is their ability to give me curves I wouldn’t otherwise have!)

I feel that this pattern would best suit someone with a fuller bust and wider hips than I have, but the pattern is easy to adjust because of its gussets, which can be resized individually to accommodate different figures. (With the gussets taking on most of the adjustments, there’s hardly any need to resize or reshape the main panels of the corset.)

If I were to make this corset a second time, I might try using two layers of coutil, and then adding a  loose lining inside. Treating the twill and sateen as one layer was no easy task, and might have caused some of the small wrinkles on the surface of the corset. A lining would cover stray stitches and the backsides of the bone flossing, to give the inside a cleaner look overall.

I might also try foregoing the cords altogether, and topstitching for its own sake. (In retrospect, this is probably what the patent originally intended; what I considered “cording channels” in Fig. 2 appear to be drawn in irregular widths, suggesting that they might simply be holding the layers of the corset together in a decorative way.) Cords look great, as can be seen in some of the inspirational historical examples from last time, but I found them tricky to integrate. I’d probably also use a shorter stitch length for the topstitching. I would definitely benefit from more practice sewing gores, and from testing out a variety of different flossing designs.

I’ve never made anything quite so complex before, and I learned and used a number of techniques that were completely new to me. It feels much different to have made a corset based on a historical pattern, rather than a self-drafted piece; this design really is a glimpse into the past! The embroidered panels look great, and match the teacup perfectly. Overall, I’m pretty pleased!

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