Project Corset
Feb. 21st, 2012 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kdheart
My sister is usually the one playing dress-up and collecting/making period clothing, but I just couldn't help myself. Sort of on a dare, this summer I ended up making myself a corset and improvising a costume for the local Renaissance Fair - I was supposed to be an inn keeper, but I'm not sure how much of that worked out.
It's partly based on the instructions found here for how to build a 16-17th century corset and partly improvised because I had no idea what half of the stuff mentioned there was.
I haven't sown anything since 8th grade when I had to make a skirt for one of my classes - ended up making it 2" too tight because I didn't want to let my classmates know my actual waist size and never wore it because it was too small - so my mum helped (not that she'd ever made a corset before). He helped me make the pattern and did all the machine sowing, while I handled the scissors and the hand-sowing. It was a bit of a rushed job - it was done in 2 days out of whatever we had on hand (one of grandma's old velvet dresses, a Roman shade, a bed sheet and those plastic binding thingis for boning).
Last week, I finally had some time off from school and spent another day working on it - I've shortened it by about 1" so it wouldn't dig into my hips anymore, straightened the back part and re-did some of the stitching.
The straps are still a bit too long and they keep slipping off my shoulders and I've lost a bit of weight since summer, so even tight-laced it's a bit more loose than I'd've liked it, but I'm afraid to work on that because I might ruin it.
So, this is what it looks like now:
I couldn't find the rest of the outfit (probably in one of the many, many boxes taking up space back home), so I improvised. Not exactly historically accurate... but, hey, no one said I couldn't have fun with it
8)
It's partly based on the instructions found here for how to build a 16-17th century corset and partly improvised because I had no idea what half of the stuff mentioned there was.
I haven't sown anything since 8th grade when I had to make a skirt for one of my classes - ended up making it 2" too tight because I didn't want to let my classmates know my actual waist size and never wore it because it was too small - so my mum helped (not that she'd ever made a corset before). He helped me make the pattern and did all the machine sowing, while I handled the scissors and the hand-sowing. It was a bit of a rushed job - it was done in 2 days out of whatever we had on hand (one of grandma's old velvet dresses, a Roman shade, a bed sheet and those plastic binding thingis for boning).
Last week, I finally had some time off from school and spent another day working on it - I've shortened it by about 1" so it wouldn't dig into my hips anymore, straightened the back part and re-did some of the stitching.
The straps are still a bit too long and they keep slipping off my shoulders and I've lost a bit of weight since summer, so even tight-laced it's a bit more loose than I'd've liked it, but I'm afraid to work on that because I might ruin it.
So, this is what it looks like now:
I couldn't find the rest of the outfit (probably in one of the many, many boxes taking up space back home), so I improvised. Not exactly historically accurate... but, hey, no one said I couldn't have fun with it
8)
