For quick review before I start talking about the final incarnation of this patent, here is the patent image (right), and the patent itself is available at Google Patents. I will be referring to most of the pieces by the numbers indicated on the patent, so you may want to open that up in another window or print it out!

I decided to make this corset as historical-feeling as possible, to my eye. I have long wanted to attempt recreating a corset from 1860 that I saw in a museum several years ago, that was borrowed from a private collection. The attribution card at the museum listed it as a "bridal corset," which has always seems like an odd term to my modern ear.

Although Queen Victoria wore a white gown on her wedding day back in 1840, thus starting the white bridal dress trend, this certainly wouldn't have been an outerwear piece back in 1860! This was truly an heirloom garment, made to last and be beautiful at the same time, to be passed on and cherished, and this is the sentiment that is growing among modern corset makers. The fabric over the busk and the panels between boning were covered in embroidery, and the top and bottom were not seamed with bias tape or ribbon or enclosed in fabric at all – they had a satin stitched shell pattern at the edge of the fabric.

Although I haven't found photos online of this exact garment, the Victoria and Albert Museum has a white wedding corset from 1887 with flossing on all the boning channels and the Metropolitan Museum has a bridal corset from 1875 that is markedly similar to my 1860 inspirational piece.  The detail in the garment I saw several years ago, and these museum examples, was at a level that could easily be worn as an outer garment by a modern woman who wasn't afraid to bare her shoulders. That is the sentiment that I wanted to create with this particular corset.

Although this 1882 Strauss patent's construction is quite different from the original inspiration, which was much more basic à la Laughing Moon's Silverado pattern, I still wanted to use this piece's aesthetic as an inspiration.

I don't have much experience with embroidery, so I cheated and used a piece of vintage tatted lace instead. I used vintage DMC fine crochet cotton to floss the boning channels. I get immense satisfaction from incorporating vintage notions into my sewing, and it made me very pleased to be able to use the same material that created the tatting, as well as the tatting itself, to add dimension to a garment using a pattern from the time period when these types of handcrafts were in their heyday.  Both the lace and the crochet cotton had a slight patina due to their age, so I used ivory-toned dupioni silk fabric, left over from a wedding gown I made for a friend in 2009. I also chose an ivory 100% cotton (Kona brand) to line the corset with -- although I almost always use a patterned quilting cotton as lining for my corsets to add character and interest, I wanted this piece to be elegant, and this was the best fit for that. I didn't want anything else to distract from the flossing and the delicate lace on the outside.

This process is one of the things that I love about corsetry. Once you have a pattern that fits you like a glove, you can make multiple garments that are so completely different in style. The purple and pink mock-up corset has a circus, theatrical harlequin feel to it, due to the sharp contrast of the colours and the pieces, but by using only one colour and adding other details, I created a completely different look for this corset.

Pattern Adjustments

Looking at the last mock-up, I liked the overall fit a fair amount. I wanted to add a small amount to the bust.

I added approximately 3cm between pieces 2 and 3 (totaling 6cm across the entire torso) by adding to the edges of the pattern pieces, measuring the seam lines to ensure that they'd still fit properly. These pieces were altered to raise the top edge of the corset over the bust specifically; I like the height of the centre front and sides. To make these changes, I copied the patterns onto fresh paper (I always retain the originals, marking it as "purple/pink mock-up", in case I do want to go back to it later for another design) and added the amounts required, 1cm at the cusp of pieces 2-3, and then phasing it out across 1 and 4. I lined the new pieces up, connecting them at the seam lines to get an accurate representation of the lines, and then cut them out on the new lines.
Panel 13, Centre Back had ended up being too short in the mock-up – I cut these pieces longer by about 1cm so that I could trim this panel when the corset was completed. I also wanted to adjust the pattern slightly to try to get it to tuck in a bit more at the bottom of the belly at centre front, without altering the hip measurement. I was originally going to trim down the bottom of  pieces 1, but upon looking at the bottom of this piece on the mock-up, there was not really enough leeway between the 1/4 seam and the busk so I altered pieces 4, 8 and 9. To avoid messing up the grainlines, I shaved 8mm from piece 9 and 3mm from piece 8 along the 8/9 seam, lining up the two pieces on my "drawing board" (ie my large window) to ensure that the seam lines still matched. The photo (right) shows the little arrow I drew. You can see piece 9 below with the new seam line marked, and piece 8 on top, tracing the seam line onto this piece.
This is similar to matching up the bust panels on Cathy Hay's "Draft your own corset" article to ensure that the adjoining pieces line up accurately when sewn. All I had to do then was to add the seam allowance to the two pieces. I removed the same amounts from each side of the new pattern of piece 4 that had the seam lines marked. As the bottom of this pattern piece is quite slanted, I ensured that the seam lines stayed accurate by squaring from the original edge to the new ones.
Front Modesty Panel Before cutting out this pattern, I decided to add a front modesty panel that would lie behind the busk to prevent any skin or garments worn underneath from showing through (you could see my belly in the photos of the purple and pink mock-up!) This is incredibly easy to do. I cut out one set of piece 1 as per the pattern -- two pieces of coutil, and two pieces of silk dupioni fashion layer, one for the front, the other to serve as facing. This will be the side that the hook part of the busk will be inserted into; sew together and insert the front busk as usual. Flip and trace Centre Front (CF) piece 1 onto another piece of paper, and add 1cm to the CF edge. Make sure to mark the piece clearly as "Piece 1 w/ Modesty panel" in case you come back to the pattern later! Photo (right) shows the two sides of the patterns for piece 1.
Cut out one set of fabric using this wider piece 1 -- two pieces of coutil, two pieces of dupioni. (You can use one wider pattern piece and just fold the 1cm width in when cutting out the busk hook side of piece 1, but I find that I never forget to cut correctly when I have two pieces). Sew these together, right sides of dupioni facing each other, sandwiched between coutil on each side, with a scant 1cm seam allowance (SA). Press this open, trim/grade the seam, and then flip it open so that the dupioni sides are showing. Press this seam to create a crisp edge, and sew a scant 1cm in from it – you've just created a modesty panel!
Insert the non-hook side of the busk next to this seam (I do this by lining up the edge of the completed hook section with the inside seam line, marking the far inside edge of the hook on the fabric front, and using a good sharp seam ripper to cut about 3mm of vertical threads on the silk layer, to minimize the distortion frequently caused on silk by using an awl to create the holes. Insert the "tabs" side of the busk. In this photo of the final corset (right) you can see a sliver of the modesty panel peeking through the busk – it's doing its job! Make sure that the top and bottom of the modesty panel are snipped slightly at an angle towards the waist, so that they won't show at the top or bottom behind the other piece! Once the busk has been inserted, I always double check that the altered modesty panel piece is accurate by laying the two piece 1s on top of each other right sides facing, lining the edge of the hook piece with the inside stitching row of the tabbed piece, and trimming any excess from the tabbed piece.

Boning Chanels

After this, I sewed the boning channels onto piece 1, and cut, tipped and inserted the straight steel boning for the small channel at the waist that would be contained between pieces 2 and 4. I did this early on in the construction process, to make sure I didn't forget it!

The other pieces I left for later, to minimize the weight of the in-progress corset as I was maneuvering it under the machine.

Before sewing the rest of the corset together, pieces 2, 4-9 and 12 all had to be quilted with the boning channels.

As with the two mock-ups, I started this lengthy process by basting a line of stitching 1cm from the edge of each piece using my 1cm wide zipper foot as a handy guide.(below, left)

Every curved piece of the corset had one side that the boning would run the entire length of; this was the side that I basted this edge on, to be able to tell where the boning channels would need to start. (below right).

As before, I used a combination of ¼" and ½" spiral steels, using the drawing on the patent as a guide for which size should be used where. I used a walking foot to sew these channels, and was incredibly pleased with how well it minimized the shifting between the layers (particularly as the two mock-ups only had two layers, and this corset had three!) – If you're considering attempting this pattern, I highly recommend investing in one of these for your machine. It did have some issues with the pieces with quite curved seams (particularly 8 and 9), as the fabric tried to rumple as I went around the curve, but I mitigated this by stopping midway, starting at the other end, and meeting midway and overstitching 3-5 stitches, and carefully pulling the threads to the back to snip.

I adjusted the needle so that there would be a ¼" space between the edge of the foot and where the needle penetrated the fabric and worked from the basted seam out to the opposite edge. I wasn't able to move the needle far enough left to use the edge of the foot for the guide for the ½" wide channels, so I taped a piece of cardboard to the walking foot that extended ¼" out, to gauge my seams. You could also use a quilting gauge, if you have one. The end result of this careful attention to stitching precise lines pays off in the clean lines, as you can see below, right.

 

While taking breaks from these lines of stitching, I hand tacked the tatted lace on the bust gusset, sewing it down to the silk and coutil base fabrics of the bust gusset (but not the lining).

As I couldn't find any beige or ivory elastic that was wide enough for piece 10 to act as the "india rubber," I took a piece of the ivory dupioni fabric, folded it on the bias, and cut out piece 10 with the bottom of the pattern piece on the fold line. I then tacked down the tatted lace only at the sides on the hip gusset, to allow for stretch. The tatted lace overlaps slightly on the bottom, which reminded me of the frilly lace that runs around the top of many antique corsets.

Construction

After all this preparation of pieces, it was finally time to sew them all together! For a regular lined corset, I would use the "welt" technique, which Caroline of Volute Corsets outlines in this post on the corsetmaking Livejournal community. This technique builds the corset out from the busk, with one seam joining the next pattern piece to the corset-in-progress. Due to the complexity of this pattern, this technique was not going to be possible.

I ended up sewing the pieces together in the same order as in the purple and pink mock-up, pressing each seam open to minimize bulk (with the exception of the seams around the piece 10, the "Indian rubber" and those seams were pressed away from piece 10 so that the lining would cover the rough edges.

Although the curvier pieces looked like they wouldn't line up (below, left), I pinned the ends and middle at the seam line, and then eased the fabric pieces together, pinning to match up the seam lines, not the fabric edges (below, right). Pieces 2 and 3 were joined, then joined to 4. Pieces 8 and 9 were joined, then 10 and 11. 10 and 11 were joined to 12, which was then added to 8/9. 5/6/7 were then sewn to 8/9/10/11/12, which was then sewn to 2/3/4.

 

 

When I reached the centre back, I paused to cut all of the boning and construct the lining, and floss the heck out of the corset.

Up until this point of construction, the only boning that must be inserted during the sewing was one small piece on each side of the centre front; however sewing piece 13 would close off many of the diagonal boning channels. I carefully measured, cut and tipped each of pieces of boning for pieces 5/6/7 (I didn't do this for all channels yet, as I wanted to minimize the weight that was being maneuvered under the machine). I purchased a Home-Pro press with a boning tipping die for this purpose, and cannot recommend this investment highly enough, either! It saved me at least several hours, and was much nicer on my hands than using two pairs of pliers to affix the ends of the boning. As the boning die for the Home-Pro is only available for ¼" boning, I dipped the ends of ½" wide boning in tool dip, and then covered that with teflon tape (as my tool dip was black and was showing through the two layers of fabric!). This worked really well, and minimized the slight bumps often caused by the boning caps.

After these were inserted, I completed the back panels using the technique that I usually use on my lined corsets – I sandwiched the corset-in-progress (pieces 5/6/7/12) between coutil and dupioni on each side. I sewed this together very carefully (the added weight from the boning makes this quite difficult – pin generously!). I pressed each side open, and top stitched along the edge of that seam. I sewed a line just over ½" from this topstitching line, through four layers, to form a boning channel. Next, I folded the CB inside and outside edges under and in towards each other, and pressed the edges down. I topstitched the edges of these folds to create a seam, and then sewed the remaining boning channels for the CB panel (this is illustrated in Caroline's Livejournal post, mentioned above.)

Lining

This corset was created with a lining that was separate from the main layer, with a boning channel stitched to the inside of the lining, near the side back.

Although this adaptation was not indicated in the original Strauss patent, the mockup of the purple and pink corset showed me that my original theory of how to apply that extra piece of boning on each side back was not feasible. As the patent wasn't clear on the method used to attach the additional boning channel at the side back, I had tried using a period technique that I'd seen on some extant corsets. These corsets did not have boning channels that ran the entire length of the corset and the boning, they had partial channels at the top and bottom, so that the metal boning could be removed for laundering to minimize rusting.

So for the purple and pink mock-up, I had machine-sewn short channels and hand sewn them to the inside of the corset. However, after a few hours of wear, it was apparent that this was NOT the solution. I had worn this mock-up three times before adding these additional channels, as I'd forgotten about them and was excited to show it off!

The corset had been comfortable, but had sagged a little bit in the back where pieces 5,6,7 and 12 joined (show right).  When the boning was inserted in the mini-channels, the corset sagged slightly less, but the boning shifted position while I was wearing it.

This caused significant welts on my back as the boning pinched my skin, and these welts lasted for nearly a week!

I decided that the best solution would be to cut out an additional lining layer, and sew down a boning channel to this; this would also serve to finish the corset and hide the raw edges of the fashion and coutil layers.

I cut out pieces 2-9, 11 and 12 out of lining cotton (an additional set of 1 and 13 out of dupioni silk was used as facing, as described above).

These lining pieces were sewn together in the same order of the original pieces indicated above, leaving out piece 10 (as you can see above).

When this was all sewn (pressing seams along the way), the boning channel was created by folding a piece of coutil  2¼" / 6cm wide(for ½" wide straight boning), and then folding and pressing it in three, ensuring that there was sufficient room for the row of stitching at each side.

I pinned this to the inside of each side of the lining, and sewed it down.

 

 

  

Flossing

Then I flossed the heck out of this corset. I don't have extensive embroidery skills, but flossing I can handle, and I am a masochist, so I flossed every single channel that had boning in this corset. I used a more complex flower and cross design on the CB, CF and piece 2, taken from the photo 8 of the Symington flossing sampler that Cathy Hay has posted on the corsetmakers livejournal community, as I thought that these would get the most attention. I was extremely pleased with the how these looked gorgeous next to the tatted lace (left). I used a basic cross for the rest of the channels, and improvised for a few empty spaces (middle). I really loved the look of the line of flossing flowing down the sides of panels 5, 6 and 7 (right).

 

Finishing Touches

Once the flossing was done, I was ready to attach the lining! Before hand stitching the lining to the seam lines at piece 1 and at piece 13, I pressed the edges in 1cm along the edge of the front and back edges of the lining. I also pressed the edges in 1cm around piece 10, so that the raw edges would be covered, but that the "india rubber" panel would still stretch on the bias. This was also sewn down by hand.

Once the lining was attached, I applied self-made bias tape to the top and bottom of the corset using my sewing machine. I also added four garter hooks for future use. I painted the metal finding  an ivory colour with nail polish, and made small loops out of strips of coutil covered with ivory silk to match the corset. I machine sewed these into the 3/8" wide seam at the bottom of the corset on the inside, and then hand finished the bias tape using a ladder stitch, being careful to enclose the edges of the fabric at piece 10.

I then marked the grommets and inserted them, choosing an antique brass to go with the ivory. Like with the busk, I used a seam ripper to carefully cut about 3mm of the vertical silk threads to minimize any fabric pulling. I measured the grommets at the waist point to be slightly closer together and minimize any gaping in the lacing.

Then I laced it up with ivory ribbon, and it was done!

 

 

 

As you can see from the side view, it still juts out slightly at the bottom of my belly, but I realized after I'd wore it around after taking the photos that this is partially caused by my poor posture.... Something to keep in mind for any future incarnations of this patent! The shot of the back laced up shows that the side back (pieces 5, 6, 7 and 12) are quite well supported from the boning channel inserted into the lining.

I love the gorgeous hourglass shape that this corset gives me! Although you can see some wrinkles in the fabric in the front view, it is also incredibly comfortable to wear. I'm going to keep wearing a chemise with it, though, as even after raising the top and adding several centimeters to the bust gores, the corset is low and my breasts are close to popping out!

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I've greatly enjoyed the entire process of making this corset from the patent, and would suggest that anyone looking to expand their skills try this. I was learning through every mock-up and every step of this process, even after over six years of making corsets. However, the process and construction aren't inherently difficult, and I firmly believe that someone with determination and patience can recreate this patent.

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