Quite a bit of time has lapsed since I last updated this diary, but I must admit that the lack of posts is greatly related to the fact that I have not been working on the project very frequently. I hope to make more progress with the corset now than I have in the past, seeing as I have finally taken the time to work on it once again!
I first found the pattern late in the previous year when I happened to come upon a copy of Nora Waugh's book,
Corsets and Crinolines, and I took quite an interest to the Late 1820s Stays pattern. As I've already mentioned, I've past the stage of enlarging the pattern, so the next step is to ensure that the stays fit properly, and then the construction process must be planned and the needed materials must be purchased.
I am not completely through with fitting the stays, yet I feel as though I may be quite soon -- if I continue to work steadily. Anyhow, the pattern is not extremely far from my size range, and most of my adjustments have been focused on the bust and hip shaping. It appears as though the wearer of the original stays was quite small waisted, yet her hips and bustline were rather full. I am smaller than her in respect to the two latter dimensions, so the first adjustment was decreasing the width of the gores until they accommodated my figure. The next adjustment was one that had been made by accident, however, seeing as it had done me good I decided to use it to my advantage. When I prepared the pattern for testing by adding seam allowances, I added an inch worth of seam allowance to the front end of the shoulder strap (the end that is attached to the front of the corset) with the intention of adding the same amount to the front of the corset where the two pieces were to be sewn together. Unfortunately (. . .Or perhaps not!), I forgot to add the seam allowance to the front corners of the stays, so when I made my first attempt at fitting the corset, I had to use safety pins to connect the two ends. It was then that I realized that I needed that extra inch in order for the stays to fit me comfortably. Needless to say, I'm going to keep the straps at the longer length.
When I tested the pattern again, on a new muslin including the adjustments made on the previous one, the corset made my arms feel rather odd when completely laced and with the shoulder straps pinned into place. I wasn't quite sure where the point of strain was located, but it felt as though it were cutting off the circulation in my shoulders and arms. After looking at the way the muslin fit and considering the placement of the seams, I decided to try adding a little room to the side/back seam between the shoulder strap seam and the waist. I let out approximately half an inch out of the seam and it seemed to help. I'm going to test this particular change when I make my third -- and perhaps final -- muslin. I'm doing it because I only tested the change on one side of the last muslin, and I want to be sure of the fit.
There is a triangular gap in all the places in the pattern where the gussets are to be inserted, rather than lines to slit the pattern for the gussets. I've decide to pretend that there are slits in place of the gaps, and simply cut a slit in the center of each gap rather than cutting a triangular slit (Does that make sense? You'll need to have seen the pattern to understand). I'm doing this so that I'll have a bit of a seam allowance to fold back when I sew in each gusset. In the muslins that I have fitted the pattern with so far, I only added seam allowances to the gussets because it didn't matter to me whether or not there were raw edges around the gussets. Now that the pattern fits, I need to have seam allowances for gusset slits, so I'm going to take advantage of those triangular gaps. I'll be testing this change in my third muslin, as well.
I have also been considering the way in which I'm going to construct the corset, as well as how I'm going to quilt/cord it, but seeing as this is a very long post, I think I'll save all of that information for my next post -- I need to step away for the computer for a while! If you have taken the time to read this entire post, I suppose you to be a very patient person indeed!
