Five Wrongs Don't Make a Right Angle

As it turns out, corsets are really hard to make. Yeah. I'm shocked. 

After last week's attempt at following the Corset Revolution instructions yielded a corset for someone with the body of a Tellytubby, I decided to employ the methods of corset makers of the Victorian Era. Sort of. You know, the people who made the thing I am trying to make but this time, it's 2021 and not 1891. *dabs*

My idea at the end of the last post was to add more horizontal and vertical lines to the pattern and then to measure them and do all the calculations to have...more measurements to work with? I don't even know what I was thinking. But I wanted the new lines to stand out. So I took a blue highlighter and maimed my creation with it. The extra lines + highlighter + the hastily drawn and wonky lines I drew = an indecipherable train wreck. 

The shadow of my french fry arms taking the photo really adds to the chaos of it all. 

If you've not yet read my post: It Feels a Bit Drafty In Here, I suggest going back and reading it to have more context. But this is where I'm currently sitting with this project. Having twice attempted to accurately measure the Jill Salen pattern and follow the Corset Revolution instructions and then adding pointless lines because it seemed like a good idea at 11:00 pm, I thought it might be time to slightly alter my method. And without the abuse of highlighters this time. 

Salen's pattern pieces are laid out in a very modern way. While there are no notches or grainlines characteristic of today's commercialized patterns, the Salen pattern is on a very straight horizontal grid. The center front and center back pieces are perpendicular and everything is spaced out. I thought the layout of the pattern pieces may affect the outcome of enlarging a new pattern to fit me, not a Tellytubby, but also not a stick. 

Original Salen pattern for reference

Antique patterns have more of a sweeping curve to them. This is the resource I used to find references for a new pattern layout. I'm using watermarked images from Image Leicester just to show you the difference in shape.

You'll notice that the front pieces sometimes slant forward or backward. The hip pieces tend to slant forward and front bust pieces fan out. I also find it interesting that the pattern pieces are all touching which indicates that seam allowances were already factored into the measurement. To my amateur self, these design choices point to it being a matter of cutting the fabric with the least amount of waste possible while also ensuring the fabric doesn't warp or bubble weirdly when sewn together. 

Also, can we just admire the flossing design sketches for a moment? They're the red and blue flourishes that serve the purpose of holding the bones in the boning channels. Of course, the Victorians said, "But make it fancy." and so they did. Fun fact, the few bones in the Pretty Housemaid are actually fully encased and don't need flossing but they are included anyway. Because *victorian.* And you better believe I fully intend on doing something ridiculous for the flossing on my PH. 

While I was admiring the curvature of the antique corset designs, I noticed some contact information at the bottom of the webpage and had a sudden revelation. What if I could get a hold of someone who can get me a digital scan of an actual Pretty Housemaid corset pattern? 

To anyone else, this may not be a big deal. But when you've stared closely at an image for months and intensely studied the minutia of each element, the prospect of looking at an original or the real thing is akin to meeting a celebrity. At this point, every time I see the words "pretty" and "housemaid" together in something I didn't write, I get a small adrenaline rush. 

I emailed the Leicester Country Records Office and an absolutely lovely human being got back to me. They said due to the pandemic and the current strain on resources, it wasn't possible to go digging in the archives for corset information. It's completely understandable given the circumstances. And this person was so kind to give me what they did know. The Symington corset patterns are bound together in a large book and were drawn up for factory use only. The patterns are very minimalistic and do not include instructions or grain lines. Instead, the information on assembling the garment would have been passed on by word of mouth between Symington factory employees. 

There is also no extant pattern for the Pretty Housemaid to their knowledge.

Update: I want to thank Sarah at the Leicester Museum Service for giving me this information and being willing to talk to me about the corsets in the Symington collection! I didn't want to mention her name without consent which is why I used vague language initially. The archives are open for anyone to study and Sarah kindly recommended I come to England and study the garments in person there when the world is somewhat less of a dumpster fire. I hope that day is sooner rather than later. It would be an absolute dream to see these items in person. Another juicy bit of information she gave me was that there are some half corsets in the collection from other manufacturers and she believes they may have been picked apart and used by the Symington company to examine corsets from the competition. Sarah, you are fantastic, and thank you so much for indulging my nerdiness! 

The Draft Riot of 2021

As of last night, five different versions of this pattern have been drafted by mine own hand and each one has been a master class in the importance of right angles. 

I'm still following the corset revolution instruction book mentioned in previous posts. It is encouraging that each one has a slightly better-looking shape. So I am going to stick with these instructions. I just kept getting in my own way. 

I went forth deciding to print the Salen pattern pieces to scale and tape them together just as I did in a previous post. Then I cut them out and rearranged them to look similar to the antique corset patterns online. 

The hip band would not fit as one whole piece if slanted and also touching the bottom of the front piece and I decided to chop it in half. I also wanted to line up the boning channels on the side back and what is now the second hip panel. You can see the flossing design in a radiating star pattern. 

My attempts to save paper by using the backside of already used pattern paper only resulted in me wasting more paper. More on that in a second. This paper was very inexpensive but it's not dotted like normal pattern paper. Instead, it has numbers and letters all spaced one inch apart reading LAMARKERS for some reason and the numbers go from 0-9. It honestly blows. But I still have a huge roll and even though the differently shaped letters and numbers make for some less than accurate points from which to draw this highly technical thing, it feels unnecessary to buy more this late in the drafting stage. 

Anyway, I tried conserving my supply of the paper I despise but the pattern pieces I taped down were not taped down at right angles. *cue Curb Your Enthusiasm theme* 

Looking back, my brain knew things were not at a ninety-degree angle and some part of me stopped me from stopping me. And I did the whole Corset Revolution tutorial as is. On the blank side of unreliable pattern paper and really late at night.

I thought this was acceptable until it came time to draw the new pattern lines based on calculating the original pattern measurements and the front piece looked like this: 

Yeah. If the front pieces were originally flared out at the top like an upsidedown bell-bottom pant leg, this wouldn't be a problem. But it is. Because had this been executed properly, the shape of the pattern pieces would be roughly the same as the original but just bigger. Also, the image is confusing and I'm very sorry. I messed up twice drawing in the second vertical line for the framework so I tried covering it with a white marker only somewhat successfully.

At this point, I was resigned to the fact that I would have to start over. But instead of printing out yet another Salen original pattern and taping her together, I harvested the already butchered pieces from the blank background carcass.

Then I made a frankenpattern with the individual pieces on a new sheet of garbage pattern paper. Here, I was presented with the challenge of drawing new horizontal and vertical line anchors but making them bolder and easier to see than black ink. My solution was, of course, glitter pen. It was still difficult to follow the gold glitter pen when there were existing black lines from the previous attempt. So I don't recommend it. But here it is. I hung it up on the wall above the table in order to have a reference when drawing the newly enlarged pattern pieces from the calculations I made. 

My workstation was an abomination but as an accountable researcher and dedicated scholar with some money, here's the rest of this crafting landscape at various stages of drafting my pattern.

Not sponsored by NBC's Community but at this point, I am reliant upon it as background noise.

I leaned my elbows on the table in the daintiest way imaginable and I was swiftly and without warning betrayed. It snapped violently, breaking into a few shards of plastic and the household duct tape selection was between teal and Union Jack patterned duct tape. So I guess this felt like the right way to pay homage to my British ancestors who allied themselves with England during the American Revolution. The past few years in the US have made me somewhat appreciative and understanding of their plight but I don't think they could ever have imagined me spilling this much tea.

Yep. Still watching Community. 

 A true agent of chaos am I. This is a sandwich comprised of the original pattern, the pattern pieces taped onto blank paper, the pattern framework from the previous attempt, and the new paper on which the harvested pattern pieces would go.

The Actual First Draft!

At long last, I pulled it together and did the maths to make a new pattern based on Salen's OG. And it looks correct and not for a Tellytubby!

Because I previously had issues with the grid spacing and the pattern pieces overlapping one another, I overcompensated this time by spacing out everything too much. This required several literal cut and paste jobs to scooch all the pattern pieces together. I did this by overlapping, taping, and cutting where there were large blank areas. This really only mattered when I was drawing the hip bands. Which had to be at certain points in order for them to be proportional. I lined them up with the front B, C, and D pieces and the side back E piece. If you were to redraw an enlarged version of a corset without a separate hip panel and instead had pieces that ran vertically from top to bottom, this wouldn't be an issue. 

I'm so excited to be closer to having a corset that fits me! There are, of course, quite a few more fitting problems to mess with. I cut out the fabric for the very first toile this evening and the sewing process for the mockup will be an upcoming post. Stay tuned! 

I've been researching and writing about corsets for this blog all summer. And there are several posts that have been in the works for months. The only issue is my own perfectionism which is ruining the party at the moment. I'm working on overcoming this so thank you for your patience and I promise there are some very exciting things to come. 

In other news:

An Instagram account to accompany the blog shall be created presently. That way, you can follow along in real-time and get notified whenever I post something new to this blog! 

I just signed some paperwork and I can begin ordering materials to make the final corset in the next day or so! I can't wait to talk about the historical fabrics and methods of construction in more depth. 

Thanks for sticking with me! Until next time, 

-Rachel