Truly Victorian S Bend Corset Done!! Huzzah!!

OHMYGOSH!!  Am I so in love with this corset!  I have made 6 corsets and 1 corselette and my fabulous corset making friend Josie has made two corsets.  I love them all!  I love wearing them and the color combinations of them (I stole the ideas for the color combinations from the Victorians...).  But I am IN LOVE with this one!!  Heather!  You are my hero!!  Seriously!  I love the way this corset feels when I am wearing it!  I feel so supported!  The way it hugs my hips and nips in my waist and the fabulous hour glass shape it gives my...um...er...mature figure, is so great!!  Ha!!!  Ok, I think I am getting across the idea that this is a seriously fabulous corset pattern!

Ok, so here are the pictures I took...Trying to look Victorian and serious...

Here we are at the "shoulders" part of "Head and Shoulders.  Knees and Toes"!  hahahaha!!!

Side view.  I didn't use a Spoon busk and the bottom front of the corset sort of stuck out...so I bent the bottom of the busk so that it curved nicely over my tummy!

Trying to look cute!  ha!

I am so embarrassed!  My right knee is showing!  Scandalous!

The only artistic way I could show the back without just standing there.  I am putting in my hair, the fabulous dragonfly comb that my sweet Mama got for me!

Another side view.  Again, I just cannot say enough how wonderful, comfortable, beautiful and awesome this corset is!  

1863 Underwear: Petticoat

I think I have lost my mind.  In fact I am pretty sure I have.  You see, I just can't do things the simple way.  Oh no.  I have to make things extra hard on myself.  Take for instance this petticoat.  I LOVE the look of this one....Simplicity 9764.  It is beautiful and soft looking and uber feminine, and it was truly not hard to make.  But was that good enough?  NO!!!  I had to choose to not purchase the eyelet lace, but rather make my own flounce.  What's wrong with that you may ask?  Well, nothing if I had simply made a ruffle flounce.  Nope....not me!  I had to go and pleat the flounce.  I am a sucker for punishment I guess.  But I love the way it turned out!!!

Simplicity 9764

This pattern was wonderful to use!  The tucks were very time consuming, but I think that can totally be explained away by the colossal quantities of fabric involved!  And I did have to use the back skirt yoke off of Simplicity 3272.  This petticoat pattern is for use with a perfectly cylindrical cage crinoline, not the Truly Victorian TV142 that slopes outward in the back.  After adding the back skirt yoke, the back of the petticoat was the exact same distance on the hoop as the front. 

The fabulous fabric I found.  It is the softest cotton....not a crisp cotton, but a really soft one...I got it at a thrift store by the way!!  Love it!!

Here she is in all her tucked and pleated glory!  I so cannot wait to try this baby on and see how she sways!!!  Can you tell I am getting excited about this project?  Yeah!!!

1863 Underwear: Cage Crinoline

Is it a.....lampshade?  No!!!  Is it a.....bird cage?  No!!!  Is it a....torture device?  No!!!  It's an 1863 cage crinoline! Bwahahahahahahaha!!!!  And I need it to make the skirt of my as yet unmade 1863 dress!  Mom came over two days in a row and we worked like crazed loonies in these things!  We had lots of fun, drank lots of mochas, ate lots of chocolate, and consumed delicious Panda Express!  But, we conquered the wylie steel boning that seemed to have a mind of its own and after two days of laughing, grouching, broken needles, pierced fingers, furrowed brows, and rearranging the hoops and tapes about a bazillion times, our wonderfully fun hoops came into being!!!  

The pattern we chose...Truly Victorian's TV142 1856 Walking Cage Crinoline.

TV142

I chose to make the bone casing out of cotton as it was just waaaaaay too much for me to justify purchasing.  It turned out fabulously!!

I chose to add an extra hoop because when I tried my set on, it turned out to be waaaay short...

Back...

Piles of perfectly round hoops!

Mom cutting out the bag portion of the cage.....it will be nice to have the bag so we don't step through the hoops and upend ourselves!!!

Attaching the hoops to the tapes which consisted of white grosgrain ribbon.

Me making sure that the hoops and tapes are nice and even!

This was a super fun project.  It was very time consuming and labor intensive, but now that it is complete I won't have to make another one!  and I am so very happy with it!!!  Yeah Heather and your fabulous patterns!!!

1863 Underwear: Chemise

Aaaahhhh...the chemise!  I love chemises!  Oh who am I kidding?  I LOVE all the Victorian underwear!  Such lovely whites (and sometimes other colors), softness, lace, tucks, frills....they just cause me to be happy!  For my 1863 chemise I chose the Simplicity 7215 pattern (hopefully I will be making the pink corset that also comes with this pattern....).  Again through research, this pattern looked very much like extant chemises from the 1860s!  

Finished chemise.  Sweet puff sleeves and fullness makes it really nice to wear.

Evil under arm gussets.  Ok, so this part of the chemise took quite a time.  I just really had to take my time and read, read, and re-read the instructions.  Thank God for the pictures that Simplicity puts on their instruction pages!!!  These gussets, while a pain in the rear, make for a very nice range of motion.  No binding, pinching or hick ups when lifting my arm!  Huzzah!!!

All in all this pattern was a nice one.  As I said above, it took quite a while inserting the underarm gussets, but that was the only real issue I had with this pattern!!!

1863 Underwear: Drawers

Right then!!!  First order of business for my 1863 outfits for the Idaho Sesquicentennial was drawers.  JoAnn's was having a  Simplicity 5 for 5 sale a while ago and I decided that I decided to get this pattern:  Simplicity 2890.  After doing research on 1860s drawers, these looked like they would be a wonderful choice.  I especially liked the fact that the waistband was a pointed yolk.  The large opening in the crotch was another benefit.  Laugh, sputter, gasp, and blush all you want, but when you have to go "make water" NOW and you have layers and layers of underthings on AND a corset, you won't be laughing when you have a large opening!  hahahahahaha!!!  The sweet tucks on the bottom of the leg was also another thing that caught my eye.

Finished product.  Drawers of 100% cotton.  I really like how these fit.  Very comfortable!

Close up of the tucks at the bottom and the antique lace for trim.

All in all I loved this pattern!  The finished drawers looked exactly as shown on the pattern envelope.  It was rather easy to put together.  The fit is lovely and the fact that all the seams are flat felled is marvelous!  No raw edges to be seen!!!  Huzzah!!!