Because I am being good and practical and doing mending instead of exciting historical sewing, I’ll show you more of Madame Ornata’s excellently interesting sewing.
She is making a classic Victorian corset, but the gorgeous striped chocolate brown fabric gives it a bit of a steampunk twist.
I love the sweetheart shaping.
It’s lined with chocolate brown linen.
Yummy...
Her sewing machine has beautiful finishing stitches, so she has used them on both back and front.
Pretty stitches
Now I just have to convince her to ornament it with leather belting and big buckles!
Or bright pink piping…
Either is good.
She used Buttericks stays/corset pattern
Buttericks stays and corsets
It fits beautifully, but after closely inspecting some historical examples, and the corset as it fits, I helped her lay out an alternative boning pattern.
We are basing it on this corset:
1866 corset from Nora Waugh's Corsets and Crinolines
The curving lines of bones should fit beautifully around the waist.
Unlike the Butterick’s pattern AND the 1866 C&C corset, this one doesn’t have a front busk. That was a purely practical decision on Madame O’s part – she didn’t have a busk and wanted to go ahead and sew rather than researching and ordering one and waiting for it to arrive.
The corsets and some of the spring steel bones that will be used in it. The curved bones will be spiral steel.
I can’t wait to see what she does with the flossing. Unlike me, Madame Ornata is a talented embroiderer, so her work should be amazing.
I love the flossing that they put under the point of the bust gussets
Beautiful! Thanks for showing the inspiration and the work. I love that you “share” your blog.
Why not do a post on mending? That could be interesting and helpful. And it would encourage me to tackle the pile of mending next to my sewing machine. (ick)
Every time I read your blog I get that itch to start another project. You are such an encouragement! I LOVE IT!
I’m excited to see what the gusseted option looks like completed, as I did the non-gusseted version and seems to flatten the chest a bit – I might just try it! Thanks so much!