In my last article I demonstrated a method for 3D pattern drafting using the tape method. In this article I will take the pattern that I drafted and make a mock up and finished corset. I will be using the pattern I drafted on the right hand side, which was the 18th century inspired corset with garter tabs.

I started by cutting out my mock up in calico. I like to draw around my pattern pieces individually and then add seam allowances onto the fabric afterwards. I think it is a bit more accurate than cutting pairs together as the fabric doesn’t shift, plus I like to see my seam allowances marked out when I’m sewing for a little extra guidance!

 

You may be able to see in the photo that I haven’t put a seam allowance at CB. This is because I am sewing on a strip of pre-made eyelets over the top of the panel to mimic where they will be on the finished corset.

I sewed together the two sides of my toile separately then joined the two CF edges together instead of inserting a busk. I then went on to work on my cording for the strap.

I like to sew my cording with a zipper foot, but you can also achieve great results with channels and a cording needle. I like a zipper foot as I like to see the cording building up! I sew one strip then either cut the cord or just bend it around to start on the next channel.

I had already cut my strap pieces out and once I started sewing I remembered something I had read (probably here on FR!) about cording your fabric BEFORE you cut your pattern pieces. I think I will definitely be doing this for the finished corset, as you can see in my photo that my fabric did shift quite a lot!

I just corded one strap and then attached both straps to the mock up.

I pressed my seams open and then taped my boning into the seams using masking tape, a nifty little trick learned from Julia Bremble of Sew Curvy. It saves the time of making channels and also means you can pull a bone out nice and quick and alter a seam when you need to, without the channels getting in the way!

As you will see from my photo, in my haste I completely forgot to add a waist tape, which does really affect the fit of the mock up as you will see!

My model Claira came back for her fitting and I laced on the mock up and started to take some notes.

In general I was pretty happy with the overall shape and fit. The one big problem I had was that there wasn't as much waist reduction as I had hoped for. Just by looking at the toile I could tell something had gone awry! It was then I realised my first mistake, forgetting the waist tape! But also I had used quite a flimsy calico, not a nice strong canvas; it was more of a meduim weight. I suspected the combination of the lighter calico and no waist tape was making the toile strech a little. I had also drafted the pattern to have a 2” gap at the back, but as you can see in the photos it  closed very easily all the way, confirming my suspicions that the toile was stretching.

Other than that, there didn't seem to be any other big alterations.

I was happy with the side view and shaping at the front. Claira has a little bit of a tummy, which was clear in the tape pattern stage, but the boning placement in the toile created a nice flat tummy as you can see by the side by side comparison.

The top line of the corset was also sitting a little low, so I planned to add on 5mm extra to the top of the first two front panels just to give a little more coverage. That was my only other adjustment...so back to that waist!

You can see in my side by side photo that there is a little waist reduction, but not what I had drafted into my pattern!

I popped a waist tape securly round the corset and tied tightly, and hey presto, there’s that waist!

As the toile was otherwise a good fit I went straight into making my actual corset. I didn't think the pattern needed adjusting, I think it was just my flimsy fabric and lack of a waist stay that was causing problems. I was fairly confident this would be resolved once I worked in real coutil. So on to the real thing...

When I took the toile apart I double checked my pattern pieces to see if they really had stretched that much. You can see in the photo that they had, so this was the last time I would be using that particular calico!

I made my adjustments to my pattern pices on the front two panels, adding in an extra 5mm to the top edge.

Then I started to mark out my fashion fabric and coutil. I am making this corset with one layer of fashion fabric fused onto a layer of coutil, then I will use external boning channels and a floating liner to finish.

My fabric is a really pretty brocade that I had a happy dyeing accident with! It was all yellow and I was trying to dye it black, but only the motif threads picked up the dye, resulting in a really interesting fabric. Sometimes mistakes can be good ones!

I started with the CF pieces as they needed to be mirror matched. There are a few ways to do this; my method is as follows.

I choose the motif I want to use and draw a line down the centre of it in chalk. I then press back the seam allowances on my two CF coutil pieces. I take one coutil pattern piece, lay the CF line against my chalk line and then flip the seam allowance back down. Then I draw round the entire piece and remove it.

I then find the motif again on another part of the fabric and draw another centre chalk line through it. I take the fashion fabric pattern piece I have just cut and fold back the seam allowance and place it over the pattern to match it up.

Then I take my other coutil piece and lay it next to the fashion fabric piece to match them.

I then remove the fashion fabric piece, flip the seam allowance back down on the coutil and draw around that piece.
Perfect mirrored pieces!

I did the same with the CB pieces, as I like them to match up too. Then I worked on the other panels. I find the easiest way of working is to mark out my panels onto the coutil then fuse the whole piece of coutil to the fashion fabric and cut everything out as one piece. It seems to make the pieces sturdier, less likely to peel away at the edges, and it also stops you cutting out the same pieces over and over!

I marked out my remaining panels onto my coutil, in order, front to back, so that the fashion fabric would match aswell. If I drew my pieces on the coutil in a random order, or some upside down, for example, then the brocade pattern wouldn’t match. If you are using a plain fabric you can put your pieces any which way and it doesn’t really matter as long as you always stick to your grain line, but with patterns and prints it’s a bit trickier!

Once everything was marked out, I attached the fusing to the other side of the coutil. I use a product called Vliesofix which is a roll of paper with glue attached on one side. I believe it is used for things like quilting and applique. The sheet of paper gets ironed onto one side of a fabric, then the paper is peeled off and the other fabric adhered. There are many other fusings that can be used; 606 spray, Wonder Under, and so on. This is the only fusing that I use because it is available in the UK and is FAB! But there may be others out there just as good or better, it all depends what you have available to you.

So, I iron the paper onto one side of the coutil and peel off the backing.

I then lay my coutil on top of my fashion fabric, making sure I have my straight grain lines matched and press and adhere the fabrics together with my iron. Once cool I cut all my fabric pieces out and lay everything out to make sure it’s all matched and the right way up.

I then notch all my pieces at the waist line and I am ready to sew!

I sewed all my pieces together, front to back, leaving the CF pieces out as I needed to put my busk in later. I usually sew a seam, press it open and topstitch it, one by one and as I was planning to place external boning channels over these seams I wasn’t too careful with my topstitch. The stitching will be hidden; it is just there for support and to keep the seam allowances down.

I added in my busk to the CF pieces and joined them to the body of the corset, also adding in a busk modesty panel, (there are a lot of tutorials available on inserting busks and modesty panels, so I won’t go into detail here.) I also sewed on the back facing, topstitched it and added the first bone channel for one side of the eyelets.

I added in my waist tape, using the topstitch lines on the reverse of the corset to tack down the tape.

I was now ready to add my external boning channels, so I put the corset to one side and grabbed some black satin coutil. I like to make my channels with a pressing bar and zipper foot. For this corset I am using 7mm bones so I cut my strips of coutil 35mm wide and use a 9mm pressing bar. The width of the bar with the coutil wrapped over and stitched leaves me with a 1.2cm channel, 1mm on each side to stich it down. For a really good explanation on working out measurements for your channels check out Lara Loft’s Perfect Boning Channels tutorial as part of the Silverado Corset series here on FR.

I worked out I needed around 4m of channelling so I made 4x 1m long strips. Once they were all finished and pressed I started applying them to the corset. I line up the centre of the pressed out seam allowance on the underside of the channel with the centre of the seam line on the corset. Sometimes if I have really curved or fiddly seams I will baste everything in place first, but for this corset I just went ahead and lay on the channels as I stitched.

Once all the channels were in place it was time to add in the floating liner. For this step I cut out all my panel pieces, except the front, back and strap, sewed them together and pressed the seams flat. I then joined them to the corset at the front and back facing panels, right sides together, turned the corset through itself and pressed the seams. I then went ahead and added in two extra channels at the back for eyelets and an extra bone and one channel next to the busk at CF for another flat steel.

I decided not to line the straps as I wanted the cording to be visible on both sides.

I went on to cord the straps, remembering to cut out a bigger piece of my fashion fabric to help with any shifting during the cording process. I cut my coutil out as normal, then lined up the straight grain on my fashion fabric and cut roughly around the shape, leaving a good few centimetres around the sides.

I sewed my first seam at the base of the strap on my seam allowance and then flipped the strap over, sewing with the fashion fabric facing me. I corded each piece using the zipper foot as I had done with the toile, except I left an extra couple of centimetres on each end of the cord so that when I cut out my strap it would be nice and even.

Once the strap was finished, I trimmed all the edges to neaten.

I attached the straps to the corset and bound the edges to neaten (as I wasn’t lining the straps.)

Once the straps were on, I decided to bind the top edge of the corset before I started the boning. (Usually I insert bones top to bottom, but as my strap was covering some on the channels I decided to work the other way around on this corset). I like to sew the binding right side together on the right side of the corset, then flip it over and hand stich the inside.

Once the top edge was done, I started to measure and cut my bones. I used spiral steels throughout, apart from one flat steel next to the busk and two flat steels either side of the eyelets, for which I had made channels using the sandwich method as my front and back facings were made from coutil.

I work by measuring each steel, cut and tip with an end cap and then put it in the corset. I know a lot of people measure, cut and prepare everything first, I’m not sure why I do it this way; I just find it easier, otherwise I tend to mix up all my bones!!

Once the corset was boned I drew on the holes for my eyelets using a lacing bone as a guide. Sometimes for a tight-lacing corset I will put more eyelets around the waist, but this corset is fairly short in the back and not particularly tight-lacing so I just evenly spaced my eyelets.

I then bound the bottom edge of the corset but didn’t finish the inside as I still needed to add my suspenders [US: garters].

I used pre-made suspenders as I had some lying around but wanted to jazz them up a bit so I unpicked the elastic from the metalware and covered them. I made a tube of black satin fabric a couple of millimetres bigger than the elastic and twice as long, and then fed the elastic through the tube, securing one end with a safety pin whilst I fed the rest through and ruched the tube. I then sewed each end to secure, fed the covered elastic back through the regulators, popped the stocking tabs back on and sewed the ends in place.

I sewed the suspenders to the tabs on the corset in the seam allowance of the binding and then finished off the binding by hand on the inside, flipped the suspenders over and popped a little stay stitch through to hold them in place.

I made little bows just as a pretty embellishment for the suspender tabs, and put eyelets and ribbon through the straps to finish.

And here is the finished corset!

I do need to make a modesty panel, but ran out of time on this particular project, so I will make one at a later date!

I am pretty happy with the finished corset. As suspected, the waist reduction worked really well in the coutil; my flimsy calico was to blame for the toile not fitting properly. I really like the shape of this corset and am very happy with the external boning channel placement. There is a little bit of rippling on the second front panel, which I think could probably have benefitted from another steel to straighten it out.

I’m very happy with how the fused fashion fabric/coutil worked. The only problem that I have with fusing fabric is that the glue stiffens the fabric, which makes it a little ‘card like’ so sometimes it doesn’t soften into the body as much and it's tricky to sew and press. However, once worn a few times it does tend to start moulding itself to the body and keeps its shape very well.

I hope you have enjoyed these articles on 3D pattern drafting and have seen the benefits that this type of drafting has to offer! Any comments, questions etc. are always appreciated!

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