Today I made a mockup!

-
This is a big deal for me, normally I put my trust in my calculations and piece in fabric if I need to.  So after taking Owen (younger brother) to his dentist appointment and getting a bagel lunch at Panera, I went home and started cutting out the pieces for the 1911 corset from these large jeans I bought at Salvation Army ages ago.  It looked like I was going to run out of fabric, but I just squeaked by and finished off the jeans as well - always good to get something out of the stash!  Although I kind of want to replace them now just in case I need to do another corset mockup sometime soon. 

I haven't quite finished with the mockup yet - I'm going to unpick the back seams from the 1901 corset I made quickly for my Victorian Romance Emma costume a few years ago and use those as the lacing strips, because I only have so many grommets/washers and I also only have so much patience.  Just holding the mockup against me, though, is telling me that a) it definitely hits between underbust and mid-bust, I don't think I'll have to make a brassiere! and b) it's quite big, somehow.  I don't know if it's because of my cutting out or because a one-inch seam allowance leaves me a lot of space to err.  It's interesting, though, because the front six pieces seem to be the right size.  The problem might be just in the back gussets and CB pieces.  Also, the bottom is completely uneven - I added an inch to the bottom of each piece, thinking that the two inches recommended would probably be too much for me, so maybe I forgot to add it to some and added it poorly to others.  These are all pretty minor things, though, so I am considering this a success!  I'll post pictures when I put the lacing strips on.

After I was tired of all this sewing - and especially of pushing pins through denim - I decided to work on scaling up my stays pattern.  I did it using the proportion method: find the bust and waist measurements of the original garment by drawing lines across the pattern pieces, find the percentage of the whole that each line segment takes up, find how long that segment would be for my measurements.  I very rarely have to adjust the height of anything, and I decided after measuring the CF that I wouldn't have to here.  As the original stays were home-made and simple, the pieces are quite geometric and I got them drawn on newspaper and cut out pretty fast.  It looks like the front and back pieces might be a bit wide, somehow, but really there's nothing else for me to do but mope around until I feel I can allow myself to buy fabric.  When I do, I promise to take looooads of pictures of my process.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pride and Prejudice 1995: The Little Things

-
Image
I did threaten to write about the Ehle/Firth Pride and Prejudice , and since I'm in a writing mood without a topic I decided to make good. Regency adaptations tend to go for an overall accurate look, interpreting age and income within the confines of realistic silhouettes and colors, and so they avoid the scrutiny and reputation that a more obviously artistic and unrealistic production garners. But just as this version of P&P  is not entirely faithful in every respect (e.g. the added Darcy-perspective scenes, the actors nearly all being significantly older than their characters - perhaps the most egregious example being Julia Sawalha in her late twenties playing teenage Lydia), Dinah Hill's costuming is not entirely accurate - mainly in ways that make the period more appealing to modern tastes. The exact date when the story is set is never given; generally, the movie's taken to be set in 1813, when the book was published. I'm not going to go into the full story of
Read more

Ca. 1866 Brown Gown - A Close-Up Look

-
Image
  Hello, everyone! It’s Cassidy, Mimicofmodes here, on Twitter, on Tumblr, on Reddit, and on Etsy.  Anyway, I have a small but fantastic collection of historic clothing. Antique historic clothing, not pieces I’ve made. A few of the pieces I bought myself, at thrift shops and on eBay and Etsy, but most of it was very kindly given to me several years ago by a blogging friend, Natalie Ferguson . Unfortunately, I’ve never had the chance to do anything much with them – but I’m so excited to be able to share them with the world this way! My collection ranges from a late 18th century shift to a 1980s cocktail dress, with most pieces from the early 20th century. At first I thought I could show you this gorgeous Edwardian evening skirt – the bodice apparently didn’t survive, or maybe it was sold separately at some point – but it’s very delicate. I wouldn’t want to put it on my dress form. I also don’t have a large enough space on the floor to lay it out! However, I’m moving this winter, and I s
Read more

Pattern Time: 1860s Chemise

-
Image
For my 150th post ( \o/ ), a quick little pattern someone might find useful. When I was working my way through a box a few weeks ago, I came across a chemise that didn't quite want to lay flat.  I took a closer look at it to figure out why, and noticed that it had a unique construction with the sleeves cut in one with the body and gussets inserted in the neckline.  I did a really quick sketch of the cutting layout and measured the important bits, so that when I got home I could draw it up in proportion on graph paper. (nb. I messed up. I've been noticing it for a while, but didn't want to point it out from shame, but I accidentally gave the neckline length as it is when gathered - the horizontal cut should be much longer, to within about four inches of the side seam. Please correct for this when making your own version.)
Read more