After this moment, this corset is not seeing sunlight…
It’s not that theres’s anything particularly… wrong with it.
It does give me a bit of a flat chest, which is an interesting sensation.
It also does no “lift and separate” favors, which I’ve heard about for overbust corsets.
Perhaps that’s because its a modified version of Butterick’s 5797 corset top pattern. I wouldn’t put it past the patternmaking company to completely disregard such a notion.
I had to take this in at many of the seams. The rounded side panels were fine, but the side seams needed to be less drastically curved and taken in. The bust ended up being much too big, so I had to reduce those seams, as well as reduce the dramatic cup that had been formed. I also took in the seams around the back panel.
Choosing this pattern was more of an endeavor to understand construction of such a garment rather than wanting to make up the pattern. But I did need an overbust corset, for my Susan costume, so I thought I’d take the plunge.
What I’ve decided for Susan, now that it’s been brought up, is that my undergarments will be separates, a petticoat with a pleated front panel, and a removable collar piece which will attach to the corset that I’ve made. By making the corset boned, and not the overdress, it allows me to use the corset in future endeavors.
For the fabric I chose to use two layers of duck cloth, which I had purchased at Walmart last year, and a nice separating zipper. I also had some grosgrain ribbon, which I used for binding the upper and lower edges, and I used heavy duty cable ties for the boning.
So it is zipped in the back. More for ease than anything else. I don’t enjoy wearing things that I can’t remove myself, and because the overdress will have hooks and eyes at the front, I didn’t want to put lacing, busk, or a zipper there, so I would need a back closure. At that point, a zipper would be perfect!
I do get a bit of reduction at the waist nevertheless, which is both a nice feeling and a bad one at first.
The real reason why I’m a bit embarrassed about this is that I basically used up all of my bobbins on this corset when I was tacking down seam allowances and boning channels. So when you get close it’s quite colorful and messy. But I love it anyway.
Second corset completed!
One day I’ll tell you about the first.
February Project #1
Stashbusting Stats: 7 fabrics used