Since last fall, I’ve been thinking about making an Edwardian-era “cowgirl” outfit. When an impractical idea get lodged in my head, I typically put it off indefinitely as my actual sewing motivation tends towards real world wearability. But come this spring, the idea was still with me, and my personal-time research on this kept going and going, so I got started.
Now the way my brain works, I had to start with the corset, even though this piece is possibly the most daunting part to me, and in many ways it felt the least exciting (ok that’s not true there’s the like, chemise and probably bust improvers, but you feel me). I needed a beginner pattern so based on much reading and this video, I chose to make up the Black Snail Edwardian Straight Front Corset because it had fewer pieces than other good-looking ones out there. I’m sure there was other reasoning at the time, but I’ve forgotten it all.
I did the first fitting in ticking from Fabricland, and coloured on it with the kids. That was cute and fun. Shopping at Fabricland, as ever, was not. I feel like I get lectures about something dumb every time!! For boning I taped on heavy zip ties, and used a ribbon to tie up. It looked good, but it was sitting about 1 cm low, and Taryn suggested I might need just a bit more room around my ribs to get it to sit properly. Which seemed to do the trick!
Since I skipped doing any kind of reinforcement for the ribbons at the back, it started to tear pretty quickly. I’m keeping the mock-up though, as it’s just sort of sweet to look at.
I had meant to do a second fitting in “corset fabric” from Farthingales but misplaced those pieces for so long that I moved on to the fashion fabric. Which is a little annoying because now I have those pattern pieces just sitting around unused. I guess they’re kind of a solid copy of the pattern? More permanent than paper? Yeah, that’s how I’ll spin it.
Pattern: Black Snail Edwardian Straight Front Corset
Fabric and notions: ticking from fabricland, fabric markers, thrifted long zip from stash, thrifted ribbon from stash, zip ties, painter’s tape
