Corset time!

Yesterday and today I made the corset, which was the trickiest piece (as I predicted).  I've lamented for a long time that sewing often requires taking something that is curved and somehow making it flat just long enough to sew it, and the corset was the epitome of this.  Especially when piecing the early seams.

My poor sewing machine deserves a rest - I broke at least three size 16 needles trying to do the finishing.  My sewing machine did NOT sound happy on the last few seams; not sure it's really meant for something this heavy.  If I do another project with duck canvas, I'm going to get size 18 needles and see if that helps.

 After sewing together most of the pieces of each half of the corset (if you've never thought about it before, you never realize that a corset is often actually two separate pieces, held together in the front by a busk and by lacing in the back), the next step was to sew (with very, very narrow seams) twill tape over the seams and in a couple of other areas to make the channels for the boning.

 The next step was to add the center-back piece on both sides, and then add the grommets.  The hardest part about adding the grommets was actually getting the holes to be the right size - my awl wasn't quite big enough, so I had to use scissors to enlarge the holes.  Then I had to hammer the grommets using the little grommet tool (sorry neighbors).

 Here's how it looks with all the grommets in place - not exactly perfectly straight or even, but not too bad overall.

 Here's how the corset looks before finishing the top and bottom and adding in the boning.  You can see how the duck fabric is stiff enough to already give the garment a lot of shape, even without the boning added in.

 Finished product!  It took me roughly ten hours, which isn't bad considering it's a pretty complicated project and I've never made a corset before.  Since my dress form can't "give" like a real body, I'm not trying to lace it up too tight.  Just enough to keep it on the dress form.  Sadly, I can't actually try it on by myself - I'll need a friend to help with that!

I might start on the muslin mock up of the dress tomorrow, but I should probably try on the undergarments and corset and have someone lace me up and help me take measurements first.  I'm pondering ;)  I can also just make the mock up and then try it on over everything and have someone help me with fitting from there.  Once I have my size in the corset I can reset the dress form and that will give me a pretty good model for fitting the dress, but the form doesn't go up quite big enough in the hips for me, and doesn't have the same shape/squishiness of a real body.  It's better than nothing though!