Welcome to instalment three of the Sanakor Articles (duh duh DUUH)! Part 1 and  part 2 are where I introduced this amazing and unique corset in detail and then re-created it, along with the pattern, in its original sizing.

In this article I will alter the top line to make it more wearable for the modern day, by giving it full bust coverage rather than the very Edwardian line it currently has. Giving the Sanakor full coverage enables the corset to be worn as both under- and outerwear without the inconvenience of having to wear pasties or otherwise cover one's modesty!

Before I start I must state that this is most definitely NOT a draping tutorial. If you want to learn to drape properly then you absolutely must spend time with the fabulous Gerry Quinton of Morua Designs as she is the draping goddess!

So onwards and upwards! Upon looking at the Sanakor (both pattern and fully made up corset) several things were clear to me in relation to this endeavour. Firstly, only panels 2 and 3 really needed altering as these are the only ones that cover the area to be extended, and secondly, the seam between these panels would have to be moved if the bust curve was to sit correctly through the apex of the breast.

 

The second issue bothered me a lot as panel 2 isn’t very wide to start with (on this size pattern anyway). I had two main options. Spilt panel 2 to create the seam line, or move the seam between panels 2 and 3 over a bit. After agonising about which would work best, I decided to just get on with it and see what jumped out at me.

I also worried about how was best to go about altering this pattern. Again there were several options – toile and add pieces to the  top line until it worked, attempt to alter the pattern then toile and fiddle with it, or drape the existing pattern and alter the style lines.
Having just done a course on draping with Gerry at the Sew Curvy studio I decided that this would be both a good test of the skills I had learnt and also the easiest way to do it.

 

Draping and Toiling

Next challenge – how to drape a bust curve on a mannequin with a mono-boob (aka the Edwardian mannequin).  Hmm, difficult. Once again, Julia of Sew Curvy came to the rescue with the kind loan of a workroom mannequin of approximately the right dimensions and no mono-boob! Seriously, you guys are all amazing!

 

Fully equipped with a mannequin, style tape, calico, tea, good company and a very large dog I set to work!

 

Since the waist tape of the Sanakor doesn’t extend the whole width of the corset I first had to work out approximately where it would sit on panel 1 in order to correctly position it on the mannequin. Once this was done, and in place, panel 2 and 3 were easy to position as the bottoms all line up. As panels 2 and 3 needed to be extended upwards it wasn’t a simple matter of just elongating the middle bit, as this would have given a very strange silhouette. Instead, I used the existing pattern to give me the placing for the style tape and also used them to give me a better line through the middle of the panel pieces. I figured that any errors would become obvious once I toiled it, so wasn’t too concerned about perfection at this stage (sorry Gerry). Also, the mannequin I was draping on is a very different shape to the Edwardian silhouette mannequin that I have, so there would likely be adjustments anyway. The only area that I walked the pattern extensively was the seam between panel 3 and 4, as I wanted panel 4 to be its original size and so I needed to ensure that this seam was the correct length on panel 3. Managed it quite well, too!

 

Ta da! One of my worries melted away when I saw where the bust apex was situated. As you can see, the panel 2 / 3 seam is not far from the mannequin apex and so moving the seam was the obvious answer. Thank you Proportion London for making your seam lines so well placed!

 

Seam style line successfully moved and now it was all about the calico, the large dog and the copious amount of notes I took on the Draping course! Again, I did skip some of the steps that we were taught (smack my hands) but I figured I could get away with it since the pattern is already in existence - and also there would be much toiling of this to pick up any slight errors in the new pattern. Sloppy, I know - I shall do better next time!  

 

Once the calico was draped and marked, it had to be taken apart and pressed ready for the next step of transferring it to card and toiling. Check out my HUMONGOUS stapler!!!!!

 

Did some more pattern piece walking just to check and lo, pretty darn good again!

 

A toile was created in the usual fashion and with lacing bars attached for ease of dressing the mannequin. I put it on the workroom mannequin and it looked kinda good! I put it on the Edwardian mannequin and it looked terrible! I decided to put it on a person before making any more decisions about it. After borrowing my friends’ torso I decided that it was good!

 

Making the Corset and Worries

Having made this particular corset twice now, both times using coutil, I wanted to do something a little different - partly to stretch myself a bit, and also to show that this corset style can be made with non-standard materials. I went backwards and forwards for a while trying to decide what to use, and I settled on sheer… because it’s always a good idea to try something new when you are on a deadline…

 

I had originally wanted to make this with the front laced configuration as seen in the patent but, as a sheer, this would be difficult as the sheer material wouldn’t take the eyelets and the strain. Reluctantly I decided to bin the idea of using the lacing but still to make panel 1 as a solid piece rather than including a busk.

Also I worried about bust coverage. With the altered bust seam, would panel 3 work as a sheer and provide enough coverage for modesty’s sake? Having looked at the toile and estimated where the seam casing of panel 2 / 3 would sit, I believed this would do the job.

Last worry was the horizontal bone in panel 3. Now that this panel had been extended, would this bone be valid? How would I fit it in a sheer panel anyway? I decided to worry about this one later…

 

Initially I wanted to use the natural coloured sheer but this just didn’t seem to work with the fabric (more about that in a minute), so I switched to black. This also gave me the opportunity to use some very special lace to overlay the sheer and give an added effect.

 

Some say I’m addicted to sparkly. I would probably agree. This fabric is so amazing that I just want to make everything out of it! Obsessed? Me?

 

The glitter itself is adhered to a tough scrim backing with no stretch, however since panel 2 requires a sandwich for the boning I decided to use coutil backing this time instead of drill, for extra stability. One of the properties I love about this glitter fabric is that, because the glitter is applied with glue, the fabric moulds to the wearer’s body once warm and becomes beautifully comfortable.

 

Panel 1 was easy. I doubled up the centre front with a reflection of itself and cut one full piece of both sheer and lace for this coupled with and two strips for the centre front bones – one of coutil and one of pink. Once attached, another issue raised its ugly head. Top seam! In the original Sanakor this is folded in on itself and top-stitched down before being attached to panel 2, but this technique wouldn’t work well with a sheer as you would still be able to see all the unfinished edges tucked inside. I decided to bind it with a satin coutil as this would match the rest of the binding and also the satin ribbon that I would be putting on the centre front to hold it closed (see original).

 

Binding successfully attached and I began to put on panel 2. This panel encloses the edges of panel 1 so the ends of the binding did not need to be finished and this made me very happy! Panel two went together easily and only required a little more clipping on the curves than usual due to the thickness. A quick top stitch and that was done.

 

The sparkly is a dream to work with as it is stable, pliable and presents no issues for the machine at all. It can be ironed but only with a cool iron which doesn’t really help with seam pressing so I just used my fingers and some seam clips to hold it taut whilst sewing.

 

I now set these pieces aside as panel 2 / 3 is the last seam to sew due to the construction method. As the centre back holds the eyelets this panel needs to be an area of greater strength. I cut one each of sheer and lace again as before (for each side) and then another set of strips of sparkly and coutil for the eyelet mounting. These I put together using the enclosed method for the centre seam; folding the sparkly from the back to the front and then top stitching to secure. After stitching the seam channels, inserting the waist tape and adding eyelets, that was panel 5 finished.

 

Panels 3 and 4 required one layer each of sheer and lace. These panels are all sheer and only have other material at the boning channels for strength. On the original, the boning channels are to the inside of the corset - but in the interests of aesthetics I decided to put them on the outside, to enclose the edges of the sheer and lace, and provide decoration. I attached panels 3, 4 and 5 together with the raw edges to the right side to provide a smooth inside to the garment.

 

Again, as with the sparkly, the sheer mesh can be ironed with a cool iron but this really doesn’t make any difference when pressing seams, so judicious use of pins, fingers and clips was made again. In the interests of strength and stability, I folded the seam allowance to one side rather than open. All seam allowances fold towards the rear, except the seam on panel 4 / 5 which folds forwards due to amount of space on panel 5.

 

With a sheer construction I would usually create a tube of strength material to enclose the bones and then stitch this down over the raw seam allowances. However using a tube of sparkly would have glitter pressing against the lace and sheer, and, by definition, against the skin of the person wearing it. Not comfy. Another method was required.

I decided to use ready-made boning for ease. These would eventually be overlaid with sparkly but we will get to that shortly. I could have made my own coutil channels and they would have worked just as well but I was trying to reduce bulk.

 

In the original construction the seams require a top-stitch which is the first line to secure the bone channel. I did the same thing but in reverse and, stitching from the front, carefully layering the bone case over the folded seam to hold both in place before stitching the other side down. Due to the width of the bone channels I did not need to clip back the seam allowance; this would also help with the stability of the sheer at the seams.

In addition panel 3 has several floating bones (not on the seams) including the infamous horizontal bone! I still hadn’t decided whether the horizontal bone was required at this stage so I want ahead and put on the wide centre bone and the double diagonal channel bone casings and decided to worry about it later. Again.

 

Dem Bones

The issue of bones is interesting in relation to the conversion of this corset design. In the original, all the bones are flat and made of either baleen or steel. This is possible as there is no bi-directional flex; however altering from a mid-ish bust to an overbust gives us the issue of the bust curves. As these bend not only front to back but also sideways, flat steel will not do the job. Fortunately it is possible to get spirals small enough to stick closely to the original configuration of channels in panels 2 and 3. I had to drop a channel due to the reduced width of panel 2 but I still managed to get the same number of bones in by butting them all up against each other, rather than leaving a gap after every 2.

 

The rest of the corset is still able to utilise the flat steels of the original design. In order to measure up for all bones, I subtract 5/8” from the bottom and top of the full length of the corset at any one place and then cut the bone to length. This gives a good bone length without the risk of catching it under the binding or trim. The age old question of bone tipping: personally I like to use tipping fluid on my flats and endcaps secured with superglue on my spirals. The tipping fluid takes 24 hours to be fully dry and the superglue about 10 minutes. But that’s just me!

 

I cut some pink on the bias a little wider than the boning channels in order to make the covers. This was a fairly straightforward application though a little fiddly around the curves but looked as good as I hoped once done. At this point I had definitely decided to leave off the horizontal channel as it just wouldn’t look good. I also held up the corset halves on my mannequin to check everything was straight as could be and pinned the waist tapes into their final positions.

 

The panel 2 – 3 channel was a straightforward seam but very fiddly at the bust curve simply due to the materials used. After much clipping, pinning and fiddling I managed to get the seam together and negotiate the boning channel application. As this is a split channel containing two bones, I decided to put in the centre seam through the bone channel first for accuracy. Seam done and bone channel attached, I then did the same with the pink overlay. I decided to leave off the centre seam on the pink as I could risk the bones not fitting if I missed my mark.

 

Ah! Nearly there! Essentially the main work was now completed. I made up the top and bottom bias of satin coutil and machine stitched the top front edge down with folded ends ready for hand finishing. Next I top-stitched the stops on the bone channels set at 5/8” from the top edge on all channels and inserted the bones!

 

WOOHOO!!!!! Binding on, trimming on, a rather nice little pleated ribbon I found somewhere… and some handmade (well fork-made) fabric bows to compliment the trimming - and then the bottom binding could be completed.

 

Whack the whole thing on the mannequin...

 

...Not bad, if I do say so myself!

 

Conclusions

Yet another interesting project for me with more firsts: first lace overlay, first non-busk front, first fully-completed and made-up drape, and first non-regulation Sanakor!

Due to the amount of firsts there are plenty of things I could have done better / differently or that were challenging - however they don’t necessarily relate to the essential reason for this article, so I shan’t go through them here. Suffice to say that I’m pretty pleased with this as far as the overbust alteration goes. If I was to do it again I would straighten the top of the bust curve, rather than using the lines on the mannequin, as these gave an outward curve that, frankly, was a pain and that I should have noticed at the time of the drape… I have no clue why I didn’t.

If I was making this for a client then there would be a whole lot more toiling going on for the bust curve and, depending on the length of the torso, I would most likely look to raise the height of the centre front panel to give more comfortable support in the breast bone area and prevent the bones from digging in.

I also found that, in the final garment, the bust curve wasn’t as pronounced as it was on the toile and drape. I believe this was most likely due to the weight of the materials used and my lack of skill in manipulating said fabric. Again, though the curve itself was rather shallow due to the mannequin I used, if I was to make this for a client then it is most likely that this curve would be far bigger… and more toiling would help...

The resultant shaping in the end didn’t differ too much from the original except in its height. In some ways that was not unexpected but, other than the plunge being even deeper, it was a little disappointing that it wasn’t more dramatic.

The lace overlay was interesting but a bit of a pain - partly due to it sliding about on the sheer mesh and also due to the amount of stretch that the lace inherently has. Going forward, I would experiment with ways of stabilising the lace overlay on the mesh prior to putting the panels together. This is especially important when dealing with this type of lace as the straight lines simply shout errors at you! I guess something with a less regimental pattern would be more forgiving also.

In the end, as a test of the mechanics of adjusting this pattern I think it could have been a lot worse and I look forward to practicing this alteration further on different body types including a larger bust to see how I can get over the inherent challenges caused by plunge corsets on large busts that require more support.

I think it is safe to say that I will be working with this pattern for a good while to come as I absolutely love it. I hope you have enjoyed this trilogy of works and I’m sure there will be more from me in the future!

 

 

 

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