Aquamarine Underbust
After much procrastination about cutting into my beautiful Silk Baron dupioni, I've finally finished another corset! This is the first underbust I've done, up until this one I stuck to overbusts. I used the King and Company Celine pattern.
When I did my first coutil corset I used the double-layer sandwich method, and I swore up and down that I wouldn't do that again because it was such a pain and next to impossible to alter, so this one just uses one layer of coutil (also from King and Company) for the strength layer. The fashion fabric layer is aquamarine dupioni from silk baron interfaced with fusible tricot, and the lining is purple couture linen from FabricMart.
I used 24 quarter-inch spiral steels, plus four quarter-inch flats around the lacing and two of the extra-thick flats that corsetmaking.com sells as quarter-inch but are actually 3/8", in the side-back seams for extra back support.
For the most part I used the folded-seam method as usual, but the side seams kept buckling and wrinkling when I did that, so I ended up ironing those seams open and sewed bone casings over (under? on the inside) the pressed seam.
I used a fuchsia stretch lace, "shadowed" by black lace at the edges. I like the visual effect but the lace itself was a huge mistake. It pulled and raveled and generally made a pain of itself. I ended up stabilizing it with bits of fusible web and liquid thread, melted with the flat tip of my hotfix tool, but it was a rather stop-gap measure and ended up damaging the texture and looking kinda funky.
I accented the lace with hotfix Swarovski crystals. I used a few ss10 crystals on the pink lace, but mostly ss6. I used a whole bunch of the jet ones on the "shadow" lace, as well a couple of colors from the "passion" mix on the pink lace.
I had a bit of silk left over, so I made a neck corset/posture collar thingy to match. Next time I do that, it's getting a zipper, because it's a PITA to get on and off.
ETA: Does anybody know where to get short separating zippers that would be appropriate for a neck corset? I always see separating zippers labeled as "jacket zippers" and they start around 14" or so. Or do you have to just get longer ones and cut them down? Would you add something at the top in that case, to prevent the zipper pull from pulling up and off when you zipper it?
..And now I feel really silly because I just realized that I didn't floss around the busk. Along with the bones on either side of the lacing (which I did floss) the busk was the other bit that I couldn't cover over with the lining after flossing so that the back of the flossing wouldn't be visible.
When I did my first coutil corset I used the double-layer sandwich method, and I swore up and down that I wouldn't do that again because it was such a pain and next to impossible to alter, so this one just uses one layer of coutil (also from King and Company) for the strength layer. The fashion fabric layer is aquamarine dupioni from silk baron interfaced with fusible tricot, and the lining is purple couture linen from FabricMart.
I used 24 quarter-inch spiral steels, plus four quarter-inch flats around the lacing and two of the extra-thick flats that corsetmaking.com sells as quarter-inch but are actually 3/8", in the side-back seams for extra back support.
For the most part I used the folded-seam method as usual, but the side seams kept buckling and wrinkling when I did that, so I ended up ironing those seams open and sewed bone casings over (under? on the inside) the pressed seam.
I used a fuchsia stretch lace, "shadowed" by black lace at the edges. I like the visual effect but the lace itself was a huge mistake. It pulled and raveled and generally made a pain of itself. I ended up stabilizing it with bits of fusible web and liquid thread, melted with the flat tip of my hotfix tool, but it was a rather stop-gap measure and ended up damaging the texture and looking kinda funky.
I accented the lace with hotfix Swarovski crystals. I used a few ss10 crystals on the pink lace, but mostly ss6. I used a whole bunch of the jet ones on the "shadow" lace, as well a couple of colors from the "passion" mix on the pink lace.
I had a bit of silk left over, so I made a neck corset/posture collar thingy to match. Next time I do that, it's getting a zipper, because it's a PITA to get on and off.
ETA: Does anybody know where to get short separating zippers that would be appropriate for a neck corset? I always see separating zippers labeled as "jacket zippers" and they start around 14" or so. Or do you have to just get longer ones and cut them down? Would you add something at the top in that case, to prevent the zipper pull from pulling up and off when you zipper it?
..And now I feel really silly because I just realized that I didn't floss around the busk. Along with the bones on either side of the lacing (which I did floss) the busk was the other bit that I couldn't cover over with the lining after flossing so that the back of the flossing wouldn't be visible.