Sewing a Corset Cover With Embroidery

I have only made one corset cover and it was- well, let's just say I was in a hurry. I made it out of a pillowcase. I want to try making it like the way they did. Like the real way. There's nothing wrong with this. Like there's nothing wrong with this. Like I use this too. I'm ready. It's time. I'm just looking through the options. So here we have our Voice of Fashion- part of the first book? I don't know if it's the first book. It is a book called Voice of Fashion. The 1901 corset cover, which- I just don't like it. I don't know why, but I just don't like it. So moving on, we have our other option here, which is from this book, The Edwardian Modiste. This one right here is really interesting. It is one piece of fabric and you cut the whole thing from it. But it's got embroidery and I kind of want to do embroidery. Kind of like that. There was another option. It looks like what I already have, which is just a little bit more shaping. And it's cute. It's got the insertion and stuff. I just don't think I'm interested in doing that one. So this is the one I'm choosing. We're gonna see how this goes and yay, I get to look up some embroidery now and digitize some. The embroidery on this corset cover from 1907 appears to be something like broderie anglaise, which I realized is kind of intimidating. But seeing as I've done cutwork and needle lace before, in a time long, long ago, I think I can digitize the embroidery using an antique needlework catalog and then cut out the holes after I've stitched it. The pattern itself gives us a perfect straight edge to hoop and embroider and I think that's pretty cool. So now, it's time to digitize. Okay, this is actually a different form of measurement than the other book. It's gonna require bust measurement this way, length of waist this way, which is good, and then the waist measurement. While I was drafting the pattern with the measurements, I quickly realized everything looked very scrunched up and it wasn't right. Okay, well I did that wrong. As I realized, you're supposed to double your length of waist measurement, so that's gonna make drafting make a lot more sense now. The fabric I have is not enough to cut on the fold, so I will be cutting two pieces out of my linen, adding seam allowance at center back, and then stitching them together. And then I will embroider the whole neckline. And before I began stitching the embroidery, I finished off the center front, which will eventually be set up with buttons. This way, the embroidery will embroider over that portion as well, at the neckline. Okay, so the first round is done, and honestly, let me see if I can get a better picture of this. I like it. I think we need to thicken up these parts here, where I have to cut out, because I just- I can barely see them. They're just too small. Uh oh. Okay, so I have rinsed all of the water-soluble stabilizer off of the etching, and then we're gonna go in and hopefully we're gonna press it, because it's wrinkling up and shrinking. Press it out, and then we're gonna try to cut out the various parts that make it actually rotary enclaves. I have had to rinse this thing like three times. Once in the sink, and then two times in the bathtub, all on cold, because I don't want this to shrink. It's still a little wet now, but oh my god. She did eventually dry enough to start cutting out, and boy is this a tedious task. My fingers need frequent breaks, because holding little sharp scissors is painful over and over. However, I love it. I am painfully, literally painfully aware that I could just buy this. And just for a little encouragement, I decided to string a little bit of ribbon through what, I guess this is like a quarter of the project, just so I could see that it's actually gonna work out and like looks nice. This part took a while. My fingers need a break, especially like wherever the scissors are. So it's time to digitize the other embroidery. Digitizing embroidery on the sleeves is actually not so hard, since I could just use elements from the previous embroidery, and it took probably about 15 minutes. Yay! One sleeve is done! More things to cut out! The part of my brain that likes fancy needs to have a talk with the part of my brain that actually has to do the work. Because this is, this is not working. Over several days of cutting only when it was comfortable, I finished the neckline and added buttonholes and buttons. That's right, we take care of ourselves over here. We have finished the buttons, which I don't know what happened to the thread because it's disgusting looking, but we'll figure that out another time. The neckline is all cut out, which is awesome, and then I added on the first sleeve, so I just gotta make one more sleeve, and then attach the belt slash gather into the belt, and then there's something going on with the belt, but I'm not thinking about that yet. But she did in fact have to think about the belt, namely how the drawstring is inserted, which appears to be via more embroidery. No. No, I'm not doing any more embroidery. I was not interested in that, so I added the belt after taking out some length in the center front, and then added lace on top and drew the ribbon through in a similar fashion, which works for me. Listen, do I think that people tied their corset cover through their corset to keep it in place? Uh, maybe? But am I doing it because I don't want it to pull up? Yes. And also, does it make the like pointy shape that I could never achieve? Also yes. So, sure! One more sleeve to go! Can't find a bop- a bodkin? May I suggest a bobby pin? Works just fine. And after sewing the final sleeve, and stringing all the ribbon through, it's time to test it out. Sometimes the concept of not doing something hard is actually kind of misleading, because sometimes even though something you make takes time, patience, and is annoyingly tedious, you know that at the end, you're going to get something that you're really super proud of. The fabric I chose could have been more light and airy, I could have digitized with less density, I could have had sharper scissors, but I think the best part of hard things is when you inevitably reach the place in every project I call the point of no return. It's when you realize you're invested in the outcome, and you are determined to follow it through by problem solving or reworking things, and in doing so, you like it even more. And that's not to say you can't take care of yourself while you're doing hard things. But sometimes easy projects just don't give us the same kind of fulfillment. I love this corset cover, and I'm so excited to use it when the weather gets a bit cooler. And if you want to know how I made my pillowcase corset cover, also a valid option, go here. Take care my salty possums, until next time.