Category: What I'm up to

1. December's pattern

   Posted on 8:00am Sunday 12th Dec 2021

   I haven't done a design specifically for men so thought it was about time! I give you the men's waistcoat-inspired corseted vest;

   

   This mock up is not corseted as my partner isn't into cinching but the pattern is available in two cinch sizes - a standard and -2''. 

   

   Most of my commissions have been for men and I have just completed an 'Ursula' corset for a client that will form part of the Little Mermaid character ensemble. The client is an American guy who was in London for a week so there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing regarding fitting. It was incredibly hard work but I was delighted wth the result. Male bodies are not easy to feminise and padding is required in all the right places. In the absence of an obvious waist it is imperative to position the corset corectly before lacing down.

    

2. October's Patreon pattern (& an added extra for Halloween)

   Posted on 9:00am Wednesday 27th Oct 2021

   

   I had intended this to be an easy corseted belt that came in at beginners level, but on writing the instructions, I realised that it might be more intermediary on the corsetry making experience scale. Don't let that put you off having a go though - it's a really comfortable design that lends itself well to stealthing under clothes and can be colour blocked to make an unusual outer cincher. If the waist section is one colour and everything else black, and if wearing with a black dress for instance, the narrow waist section can really pop, really looking like more of a belt (it would look amazing in a fluorescent fabric on the dance floor!). There are lots of possibilities with this one  - I made it partially corded and in leather - all with an inner liner to hide the seams.

   

   I overlapped the leather a little more in this version reducing the size of the peephole.

    

   The band across the ribs can be omitted but I found it more comfortable including it - I made it slightly smaller than the sweetheart rib so that it took the pressure of the cinching and prevented any digging in under the rib cage, The lower sweetheart topline under the peephole can freely move and allow for movement in that area of the abdomen. It is very lightly boned - just at the centre back, mid section and centre font in much the same way as ribbon corsets are boned. The leather version had vertical bones at the CF and the corded purple/black example has diagonal boning pockets tapering down to the bottom of the CF - you can see this in the following photo which shows the inside;

    

   

    

   I found that the rib band was kept in place better by boning in this orientation.

    

   It's the run up to Halloween and in the absence of a decent costume to wear for a party on Saturday I rushed up a bat-inspired neck corset. This pattern was also published for patrons this month - I love doing something different sometimes and letting my patrons have the pattern as an added extra.

   

    

3. 1830's corded over-bust - Lydia

   Posted on 8:00am Thursday 2nd Sep 2021

   

   The 1830's were at the very end of the Georgian period and the decade when Queen Victoria was born. The corsets of the time were gusseted, corded and with minimal whalebone - very much a transition between the soft non-boned stays of the Regency and the more heavily boned shaping of the later Victorian styles. Breasts were separated but not as uplifted as designs earlier in the century, straps were wide-set, wooden busks were used at the front, and lacing was used in the spiral configuation.

   This is not an exact reproduction of an example held at the V&A in London but I used this as my inspiration; Corset | Unknown | V&A Explore The Collections (vam.ac.uk)

   You certainly need to set aside a few weeks for this one! I used two layers of fine wool suiting which worked really well - there is a lot of piercing, pulling and tugging required to create and insert cording and the fabric held up quite well to this abuse!

   

   I basted two layers of the panels together and transferred the cording design to the wrong side with carbon paper and a tracing wheel - there was perfect symmetry across the entire front panel as I had printed the panel out 'mirrored' so that a flipping exercise wasn't necessary. In the making of the pattern I have also offered the panel to makers in this format to make it easier for them. 

   There are three main panels - I corded the front and back before assembly, sewed them together and then corded the mid panel to ensure the cording design ran seamlessly across the corset. A third liner layer was handstitched to the finished corset (after binding) to hide the messy interior (of the same suiting material). For the cording I used a double layer of string and pulled it through the channels with a blunt darning needle, using an awl to part the fibres of the inner fabric layer. The ends stop just shy of the end of the channels.

   

   

   This graded pattern has been published to the my Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/CorsetsbyCaroline/listing/1062604352/corset-pattern-lydia-an-1830s-inspired?utm_source=Copy&utm_medium=ListingManager&utm_campaign=Share&utm_term=so.lmsm&share_time=1630567900456 and will be offered to my Patreon patrons as my design for September 2021.