I'm in love with the Pretty Housemaid from Salen's "Corsets" and I was thinking about what fabrics would be best for it.
I like to keep corsets as lightweight as possible, so I was planning to use just two layers (one coutil and one cotton twill... I wonder if popeline would do?), but, since I've never corded before, I am not sure if using a non-coutil fabric on the outer side is ok.

I've seen Jema Hewitt's article about the 1880 corded corset and I've seen that she uses coutil as her outer fabric, but I'm a little unsure about that: I'm not so skilled a sewer as she and I fear it would be more difficult fo me trying to ply coutil over cording.

What do you think?

Of course if someone has tried this pattern and wishes to give me some tips, I'm all ears!

It's a gorgeous corset, go for it!

When you look at the original corded corsets (well, antique corsets in general), the fabrics are often considerably less thick than our contemporary coutils... they're just very tightly woven and often stiffened/moulded with steam on a copper form.

Remember, cording doesn't slide around and try to poke through like steels do and if this is just an occasional-wear corset then the wear-and-tear it will suffer won't be so bad. I've often used a much lighter fashion fabric on the basis that the crisp coutil can provide a flat base whilst the outer layer will flex and mould over the cording nicely.

Have fun with it! Test swatches are your friend

sparklewren wrote:
I was thinking the same things, thank you!

Seconded - cording isn't going to try to escape the same way. Do some tests, but make yourself happy.

Thanks for your answers

Well, I found a fabric for the exterior layer that should do: a cotton-linen mix with a twill wave, it is not super heavy but it seems to keep the shape well. Now i am just a bit perplexed about where to slide in the bones: since I want to keep coutil as inner layer I was thinking about sliding them on the inner side (I am going to use the fold-in technique, folding the seam allowances inside and sliding the other piece in) so that the bones would have coutil on both sides, but I don't know if having them so close to the body with just a layer of coutil between them and the skin is going to be uncomfortable...

I was a bit worried about the pattern (because I couldn't use the usual resinzing method as the pieces aren't all vertical ones), but it went together very well. I decided to make an overall increase of 5%, made the mock-up and I was stunned at how well it fitted me: I just have to cover the brest a bit (but that was expected) and take in a little at the hip and that's it....It seems almost too good to be true! I'm a little suspicious...

Great news Artemisia, .I don't think that the bones in the coutil close to the body would be the problem.You can also add a floating lining. I would so like to see it, hope you will post the photo of finished corset soon.