SHANNON'Sdresses

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LATEVictorian corset

2007

This was my second go at corset-making, and I learnt from my first mistakes, but I think there is still a long way to go before I get things ending up the way I want them to. With this corset I added the boning last, on the inside of the corset, I still used only two layers of fabric, but one of them was a lot thicker, and this time I allowed for a strip of boning to be added on the inside of each row of lacing eyelets to make the edges nice and stiff when lacing it up.

But it still didn't fit as well as I thought it would. The shape of the corset turned out to be a lot more restricting than I first thought - even my tiny frame had trouble squeezing into it. Plus, with the fabric as well as the boning strips both not being strong enough, this resulted in some serious buckling and distortion of the corset shape at the waist. The lacing at the back, however, held up a little more strongly than last time. But next time, I think, I need to draft my own pattern (if I can), use thicker fabric, more and stronger boning, and add some sort of front closure to make it easier to get on and off. But anyway, this second one was an improvement nonetheless.

I also made a chemise to go under this corset that came with the same pattern, which turned out to be handy, because the first style of Victorian dress that I want to tackle from my Victorian pattern book will fit nicely over it. We'll see what the future brings with that one.

Click here to see the making of this corset

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