Natural form era corset

I have made a couple of corsets already this year, but I needed to make one more. I'm in a middle of a project that requires a light colored natural form era corset that can be worn comfortably even for longer periods of time. I have also often been disappointed in the flatness of my belly in my Victorian corsets and I wanted to try to finally get a rounder belly and more noticeable dip in at the waist when you look at the corsets side profile. Not something a modern era woman would prefer but an essential aspect in trying to get the era look just right. I also tried to get more overall roundness in it to avoid a too waspy waist and so make it suitable for any year between 1877 and early 1880's.

I dyed some white cotton coutil to a light cotton candy pink and made a single layer corset following period instructions as described in The Fashions of the Gilded Age 1. The boning is thin spiral steel and flossing is done with blue silk. The pattern started off as the 1880's corset from Waugh's Corsets and Crinolines few corsets ago, but has slowly transformed in to something quite different. 

Overall I'm pleased. It's the most comfortable corset I've made. It has the long lean "natural" lines suitable for natural form era gowns. The size is right and although I still don't have the perfect adorable victorian belly, I was able to get close by shaping the the third panel in a way that supports the goal better and bending the busk in shape. (I think I will try to bend it a bit more still to try to lift the roundness a little upwards.)

Construction:

I sewed the panels together leaving the seam allowances on the right side. Then I covered them with strips of coutil forming external cases for boning. I also added extra channels to the wider panels. I love this construction method. It's so simple and the result is very neat inside and out.

Gusseted 1870's corset

Because I have previously tried only the corset types with shaped panels or with a hip basque I have been very curious to give a proper gusseted Victorian corset a try. And because in my opinion 1870's was the last decade before the colorful and luxurious corsets really took over, I wanted this one to look practical and utilitarian. I chose drab coutil because that was one of the most common colors of it's day for an everyday corset. It's a single layer corset with seams sewn as shown here on the right.

source: De Gracieuse archives, year 1872

Basically not sewing the seams together and then felling them, but by first folding part of the seam allowance up on the underside and down on the top side, then pinning the layers together and then sewing them down at the edge of both folds. The gussets are inserted in a similar manner as shown on the top illustration.

The pattern is from 1876. I found it from one of my favorite resources, De Gracieuse archives. It's the bottom left corset here and the pattern pieces can be found here.

It also has several additional bone casings made by sewing strips of coutil inside the corset. The flossing is made with graphite grey silk. It's boned with spiral steel.

For the first time I'm happy with the shape with no complaints. It looks quite small waisted, but in fact it isn't any smaller than any of my previous corsets. It's just an illusion created by having enough flare for bust and hips.

And a few close-ups:

1660's dress

I have always had a fondness for Dutch paintings from the 1650's and the 1660's. My favorite is Ter Borch, but Gabriël Metsu has painted my favorite dress and that became the dress my project was mainly based on. I also found the 1660's bodice pattern and construction notes on the book Seventeenth-Century Women's Dress Patterns: Book 2 extremely useful. The dress is completely hand sewn from duchess silk satin, linen canvas, mid weight linen and a finer white linen using linen and silk threads. I'm wearing it over a shift, a linen petticoat and a rump. I plan on making the appropriate shoes with the square pointy toes and colored stockings soon, but I want to make sure I get my other Costume College dresses done before that. Meanwhile I wore it with my 18th century shoes and stockings.

And a fun artsy photo taken with a phone application.

Construction:

The panels are two layers of thick and stiff linen. They have seam allowances only where they are joined to other pieces and the seam allowances are folded inside before joining the two sides together. The channels are stitched with a spaced back stitch. The pattern is based on the 1660's bodice in Seventeenth-Century Women's Dress Patterns: Book 2

The panels are whip stitched together and boned with cane, except the two CB bones that needed to be very narrow but durable. I used the spring steel strips from windshield wipers that keep the rubber parts in form. They are only 2 mm wide but durable and bendy. And won't rust.

The project continued by completing the middle layer. The original had all kinds of small fabric pieces scattered around and even paper, but for simplicity I just cut the pieces in same shapes (without seam allowances and tabs) than the boned layer and used only one kind of mid weight linen.  In the picture below I have also already added the silk layer on top of back panels and made the lacing holes.

Then I covered the rest of the bodice with silk. I stab stitched all seams through the boned layer.

Then I bound the neck edge and tried it on.

The I made the wings and the sleeves. The sleeves have an inner layer of linen canvas, doubled in the top half.

They have silk on top and are lined with fine linen. One sleeve cartrige pleated and bound and a finished wing.

The wings are two layers of linen canvas wrapped in silk from the underside.

And then with an added layer on top, stitched from the right side. The underside:

The wings were back stitched to the edge.

And the sleeves whip stitched and back stitched on the bodice. Some time before I had bound the tabs with silk grosgrain and lined them individually.

After whip stitching in the lining, the bodice was finished.

I loved the construction on Kendra's skirt so I pleated and bound the waist the same way. 

There is a small train to the skirt. Otherwise it's just straight panels running stitched together.