![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
c. 1904 Ribbon Corset
Apr. 3rd, 2016 05:00 pmWhy do I need a 1900's sports outfit? No good reason. When am I going to wear it? No idea. I'll find an excuse. Since it involves a sweater and a medium-weight wool skirt, it may be a good Hallowe'en costume this year. Or it may make an appearance at Dickens on the Strand, assuming "third time's the charm" and I actually make it there this year. That is yet to be determined. At any rate, I now have two pieces finished - the sweater (finished a couple of years ago - see the Ravelry page or the tag for details) and a corset. Yes, it's backward making the corset after the sweater, but at least I made it before the skirt. (I originally made the sweater just for modern wear so I didn't need to deal with the corset then.)
I finished up the corset last night and actually managed to take pictures of it, partly because I hadn't been able to try it on at all until it was finished and wanted to make sure it didn't need any alteration. I'm pleased to report that it didn't.
It's made using the c. 1904 ribbon corset pattern from Norah Waugh's Corsets and Crinolines. The only changes were shortening each piece by 1/2" and narrowing the side pieces from 2" to 1.5" because the mock-up worked well, and it was made with 1.5" ribbon. It's made of 2" wide pink silk satin ribbon and took 5.625 yd plus whatever extra M&J Trimming may have sent - a lot of places seem to give you a bit over when you order, and I haven't measured what I've gotten from them to have a feel for whether they do or not.
I backed the vertical pieces with coutil and lined them with twill. That may be overdoing it, but I wanted to make sure those pieces were sturdy. I left 1" seam allowances too so that everything would be caught in multiple lines of stitching and be less likely to pull apart. It's boned at center front and back and sides with steel. The eyelets are hand-sewn, partly because I couldn't find smaller grommets than I have locally, and partly because there ended up being a lot of layers in the back among coutil, ribbons, twill, and miscellaneous seam allowances, making the grommets more of a pain than they were worth.
Since satin is shiny, the flash made the pictures less than ideal, but when I tried without the flash, things ended up too shadowy so you get flash pictures. I wore my Regency chemise with it for the pictures, but I'll use my 1880's combinations with it when I wear it for real.
It was a fun project, but now I guess I should get back to the 1916 project.
I finished up the corset last night and actually managed to take pictures of it, partly because I hadn't been able to try it on at all until it was finished and wanted to make sure it didn't need any alteration. I'm pleased to report that it didn't.
It's made using the c. 1904 ribbon corset pattern from Norah Waugh's Corsets and Crinolines. The only changes were shortening each piece by 1/2" and narrowing the side pieces from 2" to 1.5" because the mock-up worked well, and it was made with 1.5" ribbon. It's made of 2" wide pink silk satin ribbon and took 5.625 yd plus whatever extra M&J Trimming may have sent - a lot of places seem to give you a bit over when you order, and I haven't measured what I've gotten from them to have a feel for whether they do or not.
I backed the vertical pieces with coutil and lined them with twill. That may be overdoing it, but I wanted to make sure those pieces were sturdy. I left 1" seam allowances too so that everything would be caught in multiple lines of stitching and be less likely to pull apart. It's boned at center front and back and sides with steel. The eyelets are hand-sewn, partly because I couldn't find smaller grommets than I have locally, and partly because there ended up being a lot of layers in the back among coutil, ribbons, twill, and miscellaneous seam allowances, making the grommets more of a pain than they were worth.
Since satin is shiny, the flash made the pictures less than ideal, but when I tried without the flash, things ended up too shadowy so you get flash pictures. I wore my Regency chemise with it for the pictures, but I'll use my 1880's combinations with it when I wear it for real.
It was a fun project, but now I guess I should get back to the 1916 project.
