All posts tagged: corsets

How I store my stuff

Following up on Friday’s post on what I do when a garment is finished, this is how I store the finished garments. Or, specifically, how I store my undergarments. I have one suitcase for corsets, chemises, short petticoats and drawers, and another for big petticoats and bustles My first suitcase, the one for corsets etc. came from Nana. It still has the airport tags from the last trip she took it on attached. I’m pretty sure it dates from the 80s, when China had just started to really open up to the West. The suitcase is clearly made for the Western market, but the marketing hasn’t quite caught up. The corsets and chemises and drawers go in the body of the suitcase, and I keep stockings and extra corset laces in the pocket. Its a great system: anytime I need lots of undergarments I just grab the whole suitcase and go. Just about the time that I started really running out of room in Nana’s suitcase, I found another, almost matching one, but even older …

Black and white delight

Published by The Dreamstress

Remember the darling black and white flowered and spotty faux ribbon corset I blogged about back in May? Well, last week I finally had the time to sit down and do the tiny bit of handsewing to finish it off. Yay for finished projects! All it needed doing was hand stitching along the front busk to hold it more securely. It’s really quite pitiful that it took me so long to do that. I really like the effect of the hands stitching on the front. It adds a nice handmade touch, and contributes to all the different graphic stripes and spots and splotches and flowers going on with this corset. And makes it look even more like something from a Tim Burton film. The corset isn’t looking its best on little Isabelle. She’s only a size 10, and this corset is more a size 14+, so it is massively pinned in the back and doesn’t show off the right curves. I need to do a proper photoshoot with it on a model.

A corset for Emily: draping the pattern

Published by The Dreamstress

I haven’t blogged much about Emily’s dress lately because I have been focused on my 17th and 18th century sewing, but I have been plugging away on it. Obviously the thing that I really need to make a the dress fit right is a 1903ish straight fronted corset. Based on period advertising, the most common straight fronted corset imported and sold in New Zealand in the first five years of the 20th century was the famous W.B. Erect Form Corset. For my 1903 corset, I used images of the WB erect form, and Norah Waugh’s ca. 1901 straight fronted corset pattern. The patterning on these things is insane. The panels are ridiculously curved, and the seaming has no relation to the bone placement. I’m draping my pattern on Isabelle. I’m not sure if this will really work. The 1903 silhouette is so extreme that it’s really hard to fit and figure out from anything that remotely matches a normal body shape. I’m just going to try my best, and hope!