Pantone Color announced the color of the year around the same time I was starting to look for inspiration for the final Abbie King, Radiant Orchid, and I just happened to have a piece of satin in that exact, beautiful shade! This is how Pantone describes Radiant Orchid.

“Radiant Orchid blooms with confidence and magical warmth that intrigues the eye and sparks the imagination. It is an expressive, creative and embracing purple—one that draws you in with its beguiling charm. A captivating harmony of fuchsia, purple and pink undertones, Radiant Orchid emanates great joy, love and health.”

I found this particular piece of satin in the fabric bin at the local thrift store. There were actually several bundles of it and now I kick myself for not grabbing all of them, but oh well. I had just enough fabric in the one bundle I did get to squeeze out the Abbie King. It was not a high quality satin but definitely a high quality color. A very lightweight, crepe-backed satin that would be ideal for a soft, flowing dress or blouse.

At the time I started this final version of the Abbie King my budget was very limited, so coutil was not an option. I had plenty of bull denim but I was afraid that the texture of the bull denim would come through the light satin if I tried to bond them together. I suppose I could have flat-lined the satin with something to give it a little more substance but I didn’t want to make a multiple layer corset and have to deal with roll pinning. Bull denim is heavier and thicker than coutil and I was afraid of creating too much bulk with heavy, multiple layers. Instead I opted to fuse the satin to some heavier brushed cotton. The cotton and satin seemed quite happy together and the brushed effect of the cotton would give a super soft interior to the corset. I love Jenni Hampshire’s method for external boning on a single layer corset so that is how I set out to complete this corset. You can check it out in her article here.

So to summarize where we left off on the 1897 corset, I had completed two toiles of the pattern and tested the pattern with several different women, including myself. I had come to some conclusions about the alterations I would need to do to move forward with an Abbie King for myself and I had started the construction of the final draft of the Abbie King. I left you with this teaser:

 

To refresh your memory, this is the patent diagram I was working from. You can read though my original article here.

 

Abbie King’s stated purpose was to create a fully customizable corset; one that could be easily adjusted to fluctuating size/weight, or at the very least, a corset that was forgiving to fluctuating size/weight. This was achieved through the use of elastic inserts and/or the addition or elimination of specific panels. It is my belief that she was targeting this corset at a very specific body type, very possibly the more mature woman who was dealing with issues of fleshy containment on a large scale. The pattern is rounded, scooped, and structurally projected in all the right places. I can see this design being heaven sent for women post maternity, who were past the age of youthful, elastic skin that bounced back where it belonged, as well as for woman of considerable bust size.

In order to make this pattern work for my body my options were to remove the optional elastic panels (o and o1) and adjust the size of the bust insert (i). Even with these modifications the Abbie King was still too large for me through the abdomen, hips and bust. That may be due more to how I scaled the pattern rather than any issues with the pattern design itself. I pinned in the excess through all areas, and then translated this information to my pattern and adjusted my pieces accordingly. I have colored in the areas to be taken out of each pattern piece with black marker.

 

Beautiful, smooth pieces awaiting their destiny.

 

You can see how quickly the beautiful lines and curves of this corset begin to reveal themselves.

 

All of these first progress pictures came together over just a couple of days, early in the year. All of the pieces came together beautifully - I even coordinated my waist tape and I had a tentative contrast fabric picked out for the boning channels.

 

One of the trickier panels to assemble was the tear drop shaped bust insert (i). I had not thought about how I would cover what would become a Y-shaped seam where the points converged. It would have been easier to hide the junction point if I had chosen internal boning channels rather than external boning channels. I was already committed, though, so I would have to figure something out along the way. You can see how I stitched my waist tape in along the outer seams using Jenni’s method and then went back and stitched the inner seam allowance edge using some careful folding at the intersection point. I then carefully trimmed everything as close as possible and added reinforcement; a tight zigzag right at the intersection.

 

And that is as far as I got. I think I whipped this first portion together in two evening’s time, but I hit an impasse with the boning channel fabric. I just couldn’t commit to what I had picked out; a silver, gold, and black brocade with a splash of purple woven in. I had originally wanted to do the channels in the same Radiant Orchid but I didn’t have enough fabric. Then I went looking for another shade of lavender or purple that would enhance and complement the Radiant Orchid but NOTHING looked good with it. Every single shade of lavender or purple I could find just looked blah next to the Radiant Orchid.

So there sat the Abbie King, languishing away, waiting for her perfect mate. Finally, a few weeks ago I knew I just had to move forward and I actually had this conversation with Radiant Orchid. “Fine, you don’t want to play matchy, matchy with me? Well let’s see how you like this! How does Sunset Orange do it for you? Huh, how do you like that?!” Don’t judge me! I can’t be the only one who talks to their projects!

And that was that. Radiant Orchid is so radiant that it needs a color equally strong to stand up to it. I had this beautiful piece of orange/pink/purple/crimson/coral batik that did the trick. Orange by itself would have annoyed me but the variegation of the batik lent a softness to the pairing, even with the vibrancy of the colors. Orange is not one of my favorite colors but in this instance I love how it stands up to the Orchid.

 

Once the channel fabric fiasco was figured out, I was able to move forward full force. I decided to bone the seams with ¼” spirals. The seams of the first three front panels are all very narrow along the bottom edge, anything bigger than 1/4” channels would have been too wide. I used two ½” flat steels on either side of my grommets. I thought I would try something new for me in the busk department and I went with a heavy duty, wide busk, more on the consequences of that decision in a moment.

Before installing the busk I first had to decide how I was going to deal with the Y at the bust insert intersection. I looked through some of the other Foundations articles to see how this issue is dealt with. The most sensible thing to do, which I think Cathy Hay mentions in one of her articles, would be to use three boning channels. One running straight up the middle, covering the center intersection point, and then a channel on either side of the center one that would branch off to cover the arms of the Y. The problem with that option was again the limited space between the panels at the bottom front. So I had to make it work with two channels. Again, I think this would be an easier issue to address if I had done internal boning channels. Noted for next time! I wasn’t able to butt my two channels as close together as I had hoped, so I ended up with some of the seam showing through - but thanks to my collection of multi-colored Sharpies I was able to make that disappear. It blended in perfectly with the variegated boning channel.

 

Busk installation came next. I loved the weight and heft of the heavy duty busk. It went in smoothly and looked great. That meant I had reached my final obstacle. The lacing panel on the original design was meant for buckles and straps. Even if I had been able to find suitable buckles (which I wasn’t) I couldn’t figure out how the straps would have worked in a practical manner. The diagram shows 10-12 buckles which would mean 10-12 corresponding straps with no diagram of what to do with the straps once the corset was tightened.

As a result I decided to eliminate the narrow, center back panel (g) and replace it with a typical lacing panel. Grommets went in and along with them a sad tragedy. Due to the thinness of the satin one of the final grommets actually cut through the satin around the outer edge of the grommet. Cut is cut. Not a thing I can do about it. The cotton layer was just fine but the satin layer cut as clean through as if I had taken my Ginghers to it.

*Sigh* Moving on. I bound the edges and went to work on the shoulder straps. They turned out pretty cute but when I test fitted the corset with them they were ill fitting. They needed angle adjustment front and back and the only way I could really get them to lay nice would have been with the help of a fitting assistant. My husband tries but he just isn’t that helpful. So instead I replaced the original straps with simple, covered elastic straps. One of these days I will make myself a body double!

 

Finished!!

I have to say that I absolutely love this corset! I love the shape it creates, the coverage, the support, the lines, I love it all. That is not to say that I have achieved perfection with the pattern yet. I still have some considerable fit issues through the bust. The cups are still way too big even with extra padding, and not because I am small in the chest department! Once the chest fits better this would be a corset I would feel comfortable wearing with or without the straps. It was surprisingly comfortable even when driving the car!

Along with the cups being too large, the wider, heavy duty busk seems to be a little too wide to lie nicely at the chest. It is hard to see in the pictures but when I look down the bust shape is distorted. Adjusting the cup size may take care of it but I think it really needs a standard width busk rather than the wider busk. I do love the feel of the more substantial busk, however.

On my initial lacing down I was able to take 6” off my waist with relatively little effort. I am not an everyday corset wearer and certainly not a tight lacer. I wouldn’t be able to wear the corset that tight for very long comfortably, but just the fact that I was easily able to achieve that in a corset made out of pretty flimsy fabric, before it was even broken in, is crazy!

Enjoy the rest of the pictures. I was able to recruit my most favorite photographer and partner in creative crime to snap some more professional pictures of the Abbie King. I always love working with Erin but I did have a slight moment of panic as we were finishing up our break of dawn shoot at a local park. I had agreed to help her with her own project after our shoot so I was quickly changing out of the corset and into my street clothes in the front seat of my car. As I am trying to discreetly wrangle myself into my bra I had a momentary flash of what someone who stumbled upon us might think, someone like a cop. Two women, an empty park, odd time of day, corset and high heels flung across the back seat, one of the women in a questionable state of undress with heavy make-up and fully styled hair. “Photo shoot, yeah right, lady! Stay at home mom? Sure you are!”

Thankfully we made a hasty departure. My husband would have never let me live that down...

 

The credit for these final photographs goes to Erin Rose Kielisch of e-rin Images. You can check out her other work here.

 

 

add