Hello lovelies,

sorry for my absence. I was on vacation and even though I was "only" at home, I had other things on my mind. We refurbished the kitchen, I sewed an Edwardian corset and played Assassin's creed odyssey most of the time.

But can you believe it? I finally finished my Edwardian corset after my first four attempts didn't work out. I used flimsy material or the wrong size and it somehow never fit me. You have no idea how happy I am, that it finally worked out and it fits me.

It all started out when we cleaned our sewing room/guest room and I found two Edwardian corsets in different stages and decided to toss them and make a new one.

The pattern was in a plastic bag next to the two corsets, bless past me for being so tidy, and I checked my size again, as the top and waist part was a size C and the hip a size E. I had traced them from the original pattern "Truly Victorian TVE 01: 1903 Edwardian corset".
My sizes all were still correct and I pinned the pattern to the fabric. I decided to not go for any trim or fashion layer because if this attempt didn't work out either, I didn't waste too much fabric.


The linen fabric I used was medium-weight and I bought it at a market in Vienna, it was handwoven from weavers in east-Europe, either the Ukraine or Romania, I can't recall which one it was.




I am really proud how pretty the bust gore looks.

I didn't go over the sides with a zig-zag stitch, which I usually do, because it was not mentioned in the pattern and I rued it in the end because the fabric frayed so much.

Inserting the busk was done in a day, I already made a few corsets so this was nothing new.

 I stamped the hooks onto the fabric by colouring them with my pink soluble pen.









When I did the first fitting I could almost close the top and waist. Weird! I should have done a size B at the top and the waist, as it seems like my body is really squishy. I kept it as it was and moved on.

I used wide cotton tape for the boning tunnels and inserted the bonings but it was clear, that it was not working out and the second fitting showed that it was still "big".




I was unsure of what to do because I had almost finished the corset but I decided to re-open it and take away 1cm on each side and it worked like a charm. The corset fitted much better.


 As the project was quite unplanned, I didn't have enough boning for the corset and had to go and buy some. I am so lucky, that there is one shop in Vienna that still sells corset making supplies and haberdashery.

The worst part was filing the edges of the metal. I could feel that my wrist was not all too happy with it because it got the blunt force off the vibration from filing. I had to stop after doing one side and continued with the other side the next day.
Of course, I also had nothing to cover the raw edges. I used tape the last few times but it was not in my corset box so instead of that I used glue. Hot glue, to be precise. And it really worked out well. It is not historical at all but better than nothing and rust.





I bound the corset with cotton twill tape and went over it with the machine. I wasn't careful and hit the metal boning two times, killing two needles. Oops.



I was done after exactly seven days, working on it a few hours per day. I really like the outcome and over the moon that I finally have an Edwardian corset.



So, what next?
I definitely need a complete Edwardian underwear set, and then a blouse, skirt, and a dress. At the moment I am working on a chemise with smocking, pintucks, and ruffles.

Have a nice weekend,

Auris Lothol