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.
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 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.
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
