adventures in bodice boning
Jan. 27th, 2015 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mandie_rwThe bones are in. *flops* Thankfully. My poor widdle fingers are tired of sewing through this cotton. Mocked up and cut out the sleeves too.Starting with a pattern really cuts down on the futzing; if I didn't have chicken arms I wouldn't have needed to futz much at all!
At least it's not like the coat sleeves from the Laughing Moon pattern...those things were absurdly big on me! This adjustment was much more reasonable.
And here is the very attractively boned bodice. I don't have any steels or casings, so as usual just made it up with what I had on hand. The cable ties were great for seven of the nine seams/darts, but those side-back seams were way too curved. I can make a tie curve a bit, but not that much. My options, then, were either cording or reed, and reed seemed like the lesser of the two evils. It may well break at some point, but I can always replace it with steels if this turns out to be an often-worn dress. As long as it doesn't happen while I'm wearing it. There are two reeds in both channels, anyway. Reed or steel, I sewed them into strips of canvas, and then tacked them to the bodice. (The four boned darts are in the wool fronts, which you can't see. I thought it'd be overkill to bone the waistcoat too...)
And it turns out the long bones in those side-back seams hold the skirt volume back in place quite nicely, so I think horizontal ties won't be necessary. Good. One less thing to do.
I didn't put it on with the corset, but even without I can tell that those bones make quite a difference. I certainly won't claim no wrinkles, but I'm pretty pleased with how smooth it is. Bone your late Victorian bodices! That's your PSA for the day.
Oh, also: I decided to be smart and practice doing my hair for this outfit. As usual I had no clue what I was doing, but c1880 daytime styles seem to be relatively simple. The difficult part is going to be getting little wispies from my pinned-back "fringe" to stop falling in my face! Will probably practice again tomorrow (and wear it to work and look like a nutter. Could be much weirder, who are we kidding).
At least it's not like the coat sleeves from the Laughing Moon pattern...those things were absurdly big on me! This adjustment was much more reasonable.
And here is the very attractively boned bodice. I don't have any steels or casings, so as usual just made it up with what I had on hand. The cable ties were great for seven of the nine seams/darts, but those side-back seams were way too curved. I can make a tie curve a bit, but not that much. My options, then, were either cording or reed, and reed seemed like the lesser of the two evils. It may well break at some point, but I can always replace it with steels if this turns out to be an often-worn dress. As long as it doesn't happen while I'm wearing it. There are two reeds in both channels, anyway. Reed or steel, I sewed them into strips of canvas, and then tacked them to the bodice. (The four boned darts are in the wool fronts, which you can't see. I thought it'd be overkill to bone the waistcoat too...)
And it turns out the long bones in those side-back seams hold the skirt volume back in place quite nicely, so I think horizontal ties won't be necessary. Good. One less thing to do.
I didn't put it on with the corset, but even without I can tell that those bones make quite a difference. I certainly won't claim no wrinkles, but I'm pretty pleased with how smooth it is. Bone your late Victorian bodices! That's your PSA for the day.
Oh, also: I decided to be smart and practice doing my hair for this outfit. As usual I had no clue what I was doing, but c1880 daytime styles seem to be relatively simple. The difficult part is going to be getting little wispies from my pinned-back "fringe" to stop falling in my face! Will probably practice again tomorrow (and wear it to work and look like a nutter. Could be much weirder, who are we kidding).
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Date: 2015-01-28 06:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-29 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-28 04:00 pm (UTC)I'm so excited to see this dress come together! It's going to look amazing on you!
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Date: 2015-01-29 04:06 am (UTC)Thank you! Gosh I hope so. :D
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Date: 2015-01-28 08:37 pm (UTC)Yea, I do very minimal boning - normally only the sides and darts (sometimes even less) and I never use metal bones anymore...I know it's not the "recommended" way:)
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Date: 2015-01-29 04:15 am (UTC)I've actually never bought steel corset bones in my life! Probably because I haven't done anything c1875-1900 up til now, so I've found cable ties perfectly sufficient. Will end up buying at least some spiral steels if I make any more natural form, though, because those ties just don't bend like I need them to. And hey, whatever boning works for you! :D