The Symingtons Pretty Housemaid corset is finally finished!
I have included the reasoning behind some of my choices/ why I have strayed from the original. If you would like any other info about the construction or have any questions or advice please feel free to ask!
To allow for waist reduction I took out 1’’ at the Centre Back for lacing and a further 1.5” out of the seams to create a total reduction of 3” at the waist (not including 2”lacing at CB) narrowing to about 1” total at the bust. You can see the red lines for the seams and the reductions at the seams, most of which are taken from the front and side seams to create the corseted shape.
After this I cut out the calico to transfer to paper as my pattern for the corset. Neatening up the lines with a setsquare, with one big alteration. You can see that the hip panel is not square, and for this particular design, with the cording, its essential to create a proper shape, so I cut this out as a kind of parallelogram instead to keep the cording on the straight grain and shape the hip, and then adjusted the waist line seam accordingly.
To keep my corset similar to the original I have used a yellow silk with calico interlining to encase the cording. To complete the cording I used chalk to mark the first line to sew along, then sandwiching piping cord between the silk and calico, against the first line of stitching. I secured this in place with another line of stitching, using a zipper foot to keep tight to the cording. The trick was to start with a very straight line; particularly across the hip. These pieces were then mounted on to white Coutil and tacked individually to keep square.
Something that I have noticed about original corsets is the lack of seams on the inside, and how neatly finished they are due to clever construction processes. (see earlier post about Museum of London archives)
On this particular corset all seams are initially on the outside, which are then used to create the channels for boning.
One of the main challenges was to have an order to sew each seam, and complete each section so that one edge could tuck neatly into another and leave no raw edges.
You can see in the image below how this gives a tidy finish.
The rest of the seams were also finished in a similar way to avoid bulky lines that would be uncomfortable when worn, and visible under clothing.
You can also see how I have used a similar method when attaching the hip panel to the rest of the bodice.
To achieve the shaping in the corset I used 16 spiral steel bones, I used the spirals instead of the plastic coated steel so that the bones would curve to the shape of the body with the corset channels, where the solid steels would not. I used a 14 inch steel spoon busk, the same as would have been used in 1890, these are very strong and have practically no bend to them, perfect for a housemaids corset as the regular stooping and manual labour would cause the bust to bend or the bones break, causing injury to the wearer. This corset would originally of had canes either side of the busk to support it further but for my purposes this wasn’t necessary.
I inserted the spoon busk the same as a straight busk, using a zipper foot on the sewing machine to get close to the edge so that the steel cant rub through the corset.
I have finished the edges of the corset with a navy blue ribbon, rather than bias binding to save time, and fabric. You will also notice that I have not added the decorative ‘flossing’ to keep the boning in place. There are 2 reasons for this 1. This is more for decorative purposes rather than secure the bones 2. After making a few samples I realised that it would have taken a fair amount of work to make them look good as embroidery takes years to master; time I just don’t have to spend on this corset.
This corset was really successful and I will post some photos when worn soon; but for now I am looking into the Edwardian 'S' bend corset as my next project.
