New and a Bit Alarming (a.k.a. Belle part III)

hehe, see what I did there?

The Bodice

Because I'm too busy to make myself a real corset and I'm a busty girl, (hehe, busy and busty) I was having a seriously difficult time deciding on whether I'd be wearing a bra or not. I decided that I would cut and fit the bodice with a bra on and invest in invisible straps. The bodice would still be  As I planned the piece, I realized I'd need to ensure that the body would have enough support to hold everything *ahem* in.

two layers of canvas

I had a lot of spare canvas left and while you can't tell, there was some silk left but I'm afraid it won't be enough for the draping around the skirt. We'll find out.

Canvas structure and silk fashion fabric, waiting to be sewn. 

And there you have it, two layers of structure and one layer of fashion

I'm really loving how the gold is photographing. I think it was a good balance between yellow and gold. Also I cut the dupioni so that the shlubs ran vertically. This was simply out of habit as years of personal hang-ups have sort of scared me a way from small horizontal lines.

With everything cut, it's time for construction:

About Boning...

My corset creation history is somewhat shallow: I've made two Elizabethans of my own and a FGS made me a Victorian she has blocked from her memory. In the pheasant dress as well as in my corsets, I've used heavy-duty plastic zip-ties I purchased from Home Depot and then cut and shortened painstakingly with wire cutters as boning. I've worn corsets with spiral steel and white steel boning as well but they've met unfortunate ends... or never started. Recently a FGS suggested trying to use lumber ties (the things they use to hold lumber together at Home Depot.) They're wider than zip ties, they're stiffer and also THEY'RE FREE.

Soooo I made my way to Home Depot where supposedly I could pick these things up from the ground. Just my luck, they'd already swept up. I was informed if I wanted lumber ties, I'd have to fish for them.

The world is your oyster.

Naturally the lumber tie I wanted was buried deep in the crevasses of the trash bin so naturally I dove in to pull it out. I probably shouldn't have been holding my cell phone at the time as it dropped into the bin and I had to really get in there to fish it out.

That was around the time I got stuck.

I was helped out by the nice lady who pointed me out to the can in the first place. I then had to explain to her why I needed lumber ties in the first place. Thankfully I left Home Depot with more than enough lumber ties for a few projects... although, with a little less dignity.

that's one tie.  I got 3 of them

I used yellow grosgrain ribbon as the channels for my corset rather than mathing-out the corset channels myself and I don't think I'm every going back. The ribbons and I'm assuming bias tape were a great way to figure out where the channels were going visually and frankly, I like the look. When I work on my next corset I'm going to see if I can do this again.

Bones, cut to size and rounded at the edges (surprisingly easy)

I applied boning to the back seams of the bodice, along the side seams and short ones along the darts at the front of the bodice. I'm not sure how the dart boning is going to work out, but I"m willing to give it a shot. If it doesn't work out, I can always remove them. I'm considering adding one more bone on the side but I can't imagine it'll help much.

I then laid the two layers of canvas over each other, stitched them- right-sides-in, then sewed the channels directly through both layers... essentially treating the canvas layer as one layer... Then it came time to sew the silk to the bodice and I'd realized I'd made a mistake somewhere...

I couldn't flip the thing inside out again because the channels tacked the canvas layers together so I cried a bit, and then consulted an FGS who advised that I rip the neck and back seams and fold the hems in to stitch them down. (drink for fucking up)

Once all the layers were sewn down, I topstitched the bottom of the bodice, and hand couched the lacing holes in back.

Also featuring the grosgrain ribbon channel. SOOOO USEFUL.

And then the skirt:

As previously stated, I had a math goblin working on my skirt which started as a full-on circle skirt pattern. Later I had the math goblin change the design again to make a gored skirt with pleating. Then the pleated skirt pattern looked... bad. Finally I brought the whole project home to my parents' place where the Mom unit gave the project one glance and said, "ruche it."

Sometimes the simplest solution is the easiest.

for a forty inch long skirt panel, I doubled the length and cut eight panels.

the mockup. it was long, I felt like a fisherman with an overly large catch.

The mockup went well and looked like what I wanted. I was both relieved and annoyed I didn't decide on it sooner. I ran gathering threads along the sides of each panel, and shortened them to 40 inches.

the relief I felt after each panel was finished was somewhat absurd

It's always really cool when your work starts to look like the thing you designed.

The final step was tacking on the trim around the middle of the skirt and the shoulders. It was easy enough hand-work and in the end I actually had more dupioni than I thought. (Celebratory drink for having just enough fabric for the whole thing!)

Next time: the final product.