I spent all morning faffing around with my printer, trying to put together some packaging for my badges, and sadly failed miserably. As a result, I decided to spend the afternoon doing something a little more productive.
So, I made a corset.
This is the first mock-up from the pattern I drafted the other day:
It’s made from three layers – cotton fashion fabric, a heavy drill for strength, and the lining is some lightweight black poly/cotton I had lying around. The waist tape is enclosed between the layers and is made from grosgrain ribbon, and the binding’s black poly/cotton.
The bones are Rigilene (two on each seam, plus front and back), and the front fastening is hook and eye tape. I’m waiting for my steel bones and busk to arrive, and I had these on hand, so I thought they’d be okay to just test the pattern.
I know it doesn’t look very shapely, but that’s because I’m not a very curvy shape! I wanted my first draft to fit my body shape pretty closely (this gives a two-inch reduction at the waist) before I started messing around with different proportions.
Sadly I can’t try it on just yet, because the last thing I need to do is add the grommets!
As you can see, I didn’t bother too much about pattern-matching on this one, as I was just using up a small remnant of fabric. The binding’s also done on the sewing machine rather than by hand, just for speed.
I think it looks okay for a first attempt though – although it remains to be seen how it behaves once I put it on.