Rescue in progress
I made this corset for an artist friend of mine, in exchange for a painting of some shoes. It was the last metre of this fabric I had so naturally, disaster ensued..
She paints flowers (amongst other things) so it was particularly apt. It's a Laughing Moon Dore pattern. I offered to cut her a special pattern but she liked this one, so this it was. I altered it a little at the waistline but when I did that - years ago - I
was inexperienced. I am not sure if I ever made up the altered dore for myself but basically, I altered all the seams and as I only wanted a small waist reduction, this was the WRONG thing to do .. Anyway, I forgot all that and pressed on with the work. We'd done a toile which fitted perfectly but I decided to try a new (to me) technique and used 3 layers: the top fabric flatlined to duck canvas and then lined with herringbone coutil. The duck canvas was a nod to her being an artist ... silly I know.
Anyway, it all sewed together really well, no wrinkles, nice and sturdy etc., etc., My pattern matching was damn near perfect , I was VERY pleased and she was very excited. And so the day came when it was finished and she tried it on.
DISASTER!!!!!! It was too small by a mile - which considering she is the size of a small pixie .... But not only was it too small by a mile, but it poked out at the tummy and in at the bum. It was an eyesore and no matter how much we pulled and tweaked and smoothed and tugged, it looked horrific. Sigh. A combination of thick materials and bad pattern altering I think ...
I posted about the disaster here, and Sparklewren made a couple of 'rescue' suggestions. It caused me physical pain to cut it up ... but cut it up I did, saving the front and back panels where the pattern matching was.
I cut an entirely new pattern using the rescued bits as a starting point. It was a bit of a nightmare as the fronts and backs had shrunk somewhat during the process because some of their seam allowance had been removed and some parts near the edges were damaged or worn from unpicking stitches. But, I made a toile with the new pattern and we tried it on and it fit perfectly. I've actually agreed to make a new corset with some red and black spotty silk - she doesn't know about the rescue so in the meantime, I'm making this rescue corset as an experiment. If it works out, I'll likely give it to it's intended recipient but i'm trying to be very relaxed about it! Here it is in progress:
It doesn't fit on the mannequin properly but i'm very pleased with the smoothness. Construction - satin coutil outer, herringone coutil lining, enclosed welt seam method with external bone casings made from satin coutil. I wouldn't normally use that method in combination with external casings, but they were an afterthought. Without them, the corset looks a little 'flat'. The texture of the raised bone channels makes all the difference here. Anyway, I'm quite pleased. :)
