The Corset

Since my gown will have an off-the-shoulder neckline, I knew I would need appropriate undergarments.  However, I hate strapless bras.  Also, I know from working in bridal and doing countless alterations on predominantly strapless wedding gowns that the fit of the gown needs to allow for the bulk of the weight to rest on the hip shelf.  To me, the obvious solution is a corset.  This will give me the lift and support that I want in the bust, while giving me a foundation through the waist and hips for the gown to rest on.  The point of the corset is comfort.  I know from experience that it is much more comfortable to wear 18th century clothing, for example, with (well-fitting) stays than without.  Since the silhouette of my gown is very much Victorian-inspired, I naturally need a Victorian corset.  

I started with Simplicity 9769, and I found this great review/tutorial on making a mockup corset and finding the correct fit.  It was extremely helpful, especially the bit about using a separating zipper to simulate a front busk.  (She eliminated the front busk in her finished corset, but I'm keeping it in mine.)  Here is my test corset with bones inserted and alterations made to my shape:  

I did my alterations a little differently - instead of using a mix of different sizes, I simply took in the excess material at the seam allowances to eliminate the gapping at the bust.

I did the actual fitting of the corset on myself, not on the dress form.  It fits me better than it fits Anna.  Her waist is slightly smaller than mine but her hips and bust are bigger, which is why there's weird wrinkling in the middle.

After I finalized the fit, I traced the original pattern pieces onto heavy-duty brown paper and marked the adjustments to the seam allowances from the test corset.  Then it was time to cut out my fashion fabric!

I've had this lovely lavender brocade in my stash for years, just waiting for the right project!  As you can probably tell, this fabric used to be part of a different garment.  I can't even really describe what it was, but it had royal purple ribbon trim sewn ALL over it!  I bought it (whatever it was) at a costume sale in college, simply because I thought the fabric was pretty.  Long ago, I took the garment apart and painstakingly removed all of the ribbon trim.  I wish I had pictures of what it looked like before.  :p

Anyway, before I cut out my corset, I serged all the raw edges of the fabric and washed and ironed them.  I also cut out two layers of coutil (also previously washed and ironed) for each fashion fabric piece.  I flat-lined the fashion fabric with one layer of coutil and serged the pieces together at the long edges.  The second layer of coutil became the lining.  I used the "sandwiching" method of construction, which the tutorial describes better than I could.  And I stitched the boning channels through all layers of the seam allowances.  

The bones, busk, grommets, and lacing ties all came from the kit for this pattern I bought at corsetmaking.com, which it seems they no longer carry.  Still a great site for corset supplies, though.

I only ended up using about half of the bones, and none of the bone casing.  The kit did not include grommet-setting supplies, so I had to find those myself.  Finally tracked them down at Michael's.

I still need to bind the top and bottom edges, and I want to add a waist tape as well.  But other than that, the fit is good and I'm happy.  With the corset, I got Anna the dress form adjusted to my measurements.

This has been very helpful for fitting purposes!