Fashion Blog

Sewing My Corset Together.

Once the panels were dry, my next step was to interface the back of each panel to stiffen my corset. I then sewed my panels together with a 1.5cm seam allowance for boning. 

My corset design has a curved bottom and is cut high on the hip, to create this I looked back at my toile. 

Originally to create the curves I measured with a tape measure down the corset toile on the middle panel to know how long I wanted it and then measured the highest point I wanted it on the 4th panel and created the curve points in the other panels joining them together and folding the toile in half and cutting it so it was exactly symmetrical. 

With my real corset I made it easier for myself by putting the toile on top of my real corset and pinned it on the side and bottom edges and cut each side one at a time. 

I needed to back tack the bottom panels of my corset again after it had been cut to make sure the stitching at the bottom wouldn’t fall apart. I pressed open the seams with the iron afterwards to allow for bias binging and boning to be put in. 

I didnt sew the 4th panel on the left side because this would be where the zip would be put in, i will be using a small invivible zip about 12 inches in light blue onto the side back.  

I moved on to creating the lining, I already had a white satin material that I needed to make it with so i took it to the iron and pressed out the creases. 

 

To create the lining I did the same process of putting my panel peices on the satin material and cutting them out, then I had to interface each panel like before and sew them together like I did the my corset, then to attach it to the corset I put the lining the wrong away around and sewed the the top and one of the side edges together so it was half attached. I then had to press the edges to make sure none of the white sating would show over the blue when the corset was on the stand.  

Cutting the lining.

I had to make the lining the same shape as my corset, to do this i used the same method i did with pinning the twarl on top of my corset to get the shape, I pinned the corset on top of the lining.

I then flipped both corsets over so the seams were on the outsides and pinned them together to sew, this is how I would attach the lining to the top of the corset, I sewed the top of the corset together with 1cm seam allowance and turned it inside out make the corset the correct way again. 

Zip. 

To sew on my invisible zip I opened the zip and flipped the left side over the wrong way and sewed a straight stitch down the edge of zip just so it would be attached to the lining, I then swapped the footer on the machine for a one sided zipper foot and sewed as close as possible to the zip i did this by rolling the zip over with my fingers so the seam would be directly next to it, I left a couple of inches off the bottom so I could go back and sew the bottom corset panels together to cover the bottom of the zip. I did the same technique for the other side of my zip on my corset panel and then finished sewing the bottom corset panels together it everything would be invisible when zipped up on the one side, I still had to attach the zip to the separate lining. When sewing the zip to the lining i made sure i folded the top part of the zip over into the lining that way you wouldnt see the top of the zip at all.

Dyeing my Corset.

Before dyeing my real corset I made sure I had done plenty of samples.

I cut a strip of cotton with the same length as my corset panel would be be as a test strand to see how the dyes would look and what sort of gap I would want between each colour. 

 

I played around with blending different shades of blue together and techniques for smooth application and weather to use water and how far up should I drag the water to get a smooth blended effect. 

I found that using different sizes paintbrushes made a big difference as a bigger paintbrush meant I could apply the dye quickly and have a less streaky effect where as having a smaller paintbrush made a lot of streaks in the dye and the result wasn’t as nice.

Next I practised on a real corset panel because I needed to judge the distance i wanted between the 2 different shades of blue and make pencil marks where I wanted the lines to start and finish and what direction they were going in. Originally the gap of white was around 5cm.

 

Where the dye finished i always made sure the white gap was completely dry so the dyes wouldn’t run up or down the fabric or blend together. 

Each panel piece had to be put on A3 sized plain paper, this was because if I used newspaper, ink from underneath would run on to the material and ruin my design. I practised on 2 more strips of cotton to make sure I was fully prepared, I found the dark blue was weak in colour so I put more more darker dye on top of the strips to get a better result

I now started to dye my real corset. 

Because some of the darker dye wasent strong enough I decided to use a new technique where I would mix the powder dye in with water in a spray bottle and spray the dye onto the panels. The end result would have all the dye would drip down when hung up on a stand and create the same ombre effect I wanted.

The pro’s to this technique are its very quick and took a lot less time to dye each panel individually with a paintbrush, i only had to spray 2 or 3 times on each panel and it took less time to dry because it wasn’t sitting on wet paper.
The cons are its very messy, the dye would spray everywhere, it was hard to tip the dye into the bottle without wasting any and having some of the mess from previous students work already stained on the stand going onto my wet panels and staining them.

 

To make the pleats I first had to cut a long strip of fabric and dye it dark blue, I did this by the sink as it would be quite messy. 

 

Buying Fabric and Cutting Panels.

Buying my fabric was simple as I would only be using one type of material, pure white cotton.This is because it would be easy to dye the different blues and create the ombre effect that i wanted. 

I made a lay plan and worked out that I would need 1 meter for cutting my corset panels alone, my first panel would be on the fold of the fabric and the other panels would be cut 2 each. I needed about 2 meters extra for making the pleats at the top and bottom of my corset as my pleats are quite wide at 10cm with a 3cm gap I needed to make sure I wouldn’t run out of material.

In total I bought 3 meters of white cotton from the Birmingham rag markets. 

To cut each panel I first ironed the cotton and then lay it flat onto the table, I used a weight to make sure it wouldn’t slide off the edge of the table. I made the grain line was correct and folded the edge of the fabric over slightly on the side so I could cut my first panel directly on the fold. 

After doing this I carried on cutting my other panels with the fabric still folded but not on the folded edge of the material so they would all come out as 2 single panels. 

When finished cutting I had a total of 7 panels, my next step will be to individually dye each panel. 

These are the panels cut and pinned together. 

Pin tucks.

I am practising with pin tucks because they will be on the top and bottom of my corset, I need to know what size I want the tucks to be and how much of a gap I need to leave before the next tuck will begin. 

I started by experimenting with sizes starting from 1cm tucks upwards on scraps of material and calico. 

I need to work out how much extra material I will need on my panels as the pin tucks will be attached and and I still need enough so the panels will fit

Experimental fabric dyeing.

I experimented with fabric dyes to see the results I can create with different materials, dyes and techniques to help me with my final design.  

The first dye I experimented with was Berol Fabric Dye in colours light blue, navy blue, dark blue, black and green.

Materials tested were calico, white cotton and a thin nylon material.
I cut these up into long strips and placed them in a container with a small amount of water and the desired dye colour, because this type of dye wasn’t as strong as the second dye I used I found they took longer to take to the material and the process wasn’t effective without wetting the material first. I tried both processes, I ripped old pages of a magazines out and placed them on the table to protect it. 
Next I placed the materials in the container half way so it could easily be pulled out and checked after an amount of time.

Here I tried putting dye straight on the fabric from the bottle when the material was dry.

Then I wet the material to see the difference would be. 

As you can see this worked better because the dye would spread quickly as soon as it touched the wet fabric and created the same faded effect needed for my corset. I also tried to do a dip dyed effect. 

My last technique would be putting individual dyes on wet material straight from the bottle then tipping it up it would run down and blend together.

Here were the results.

Powder Berol Dye. 
I used the same brand of dye just in a powder form, the colours I had to play are red, orange, blue and purple. I used a nylon material for this to experiment to see what would happen. 

Dry nylon samples. As you can see the material took to the dye straight away so this was successful, I experimented with leaving wet calico in the dye container and then pulled it out half way to see what the difference in colour would be. 

Tye dye samples. 
I got a plain piece of cotton with some elastic bands and gathered the material up into the middle, tied it but didn’t wet it. This worked well because the dye took straight to the material and spread quickly creating a nice spreading effect.

 

Some samples were not as successful and came out with no obvious ring around but others created nice light a dark parts on the material giving a nice effect.

Paintbrush Dyeing

To create the desired look for my corset I tried using a paintbrush and learnt I could control the dye more by using doing this, this is how it turned out.

here are the final results.

Evaluation. 

Overall doing these samples has helped me learn what techniques have worked best and worst for me when i’m doing my real dyeing. I found that wetting the material first helps the dye to take to the fabric better and will blend easily together with another dye, were as dry material creates a more harsh effect. I will use paintbrushes to get the desired design effect I’m looking for as this is more controlled, the problems I had when dyeing were when I wanted 2 colours on the same material trying not to get them to mix and leave the right amount of gap between them. I also had problems with the dye being messy and getting on some of my other samples and ruining them. 

Health and Safety.

1. Bags under tables no clutter around dyeing area.

2.Tie hair back

3. wear protective gloves.

3. Wear latex gloves when dyeing.

Problems with my Toile.

Once I had sewn my first toile together, this is the outcome. 

The back of the corset doesn’t fit the mannequin making it much to small than the size 12 its meant to be.

To make it fit I slashed the paper panels up to the waistline so it can be expanded out. I measured with the mannequin the distance between the centre point to where my corset finished then divided by how many panels I had so I could add whatever measurement was left onto each panel. I added the measurement onto the panels and taped more pattern paper underneath to create new panels. 

I did a lay plan for the new panels. Once sewn together, this is how it looked. 
The new twarl only fitted down to the waist line, to get it to fit I changed the third and forth panels and made them bigger by slashing the paper panels again. I unpicked the old 3rd and 4th panels and cut out new bigger panels and sew them together to make my final toile. 

This toile still didnt fit the stand so i re-made the 3rd and 4th panel using draping on the stand and married these new panels to the 1st and 2nd panels. 

add pictures of final corset 

Evaluation.
Overall I found this technique difficult to grasp because you had to make sure you were thorough when creating darts on the mannequin and when tracing off panels, it was hard not to make mistakes as I hadn’t explored this technique before and had to make a lot of changes before it was complete.

Exploring Techniques.

I explored various embroidery techniques as I’m going to use one of these techniques on my corset.

Practising will first refresh my memory on the method as well as help trying out new techniques, processes, colours or materials, it will be helpful for giving myself a time scale and therefore can help me organise my time correctly.

Equipment Needed:
Embroidery Hoop,Needle,Thread,Scissors,Ruler,Tailors Chalk,Calico,Scrap Material.  

Couching:

I drew and 10 by 10 cm square on my calico and got some scrap fabric and made it 10-20x the size of the square I had previously drew. 
I threaded the needle and knotted it then pushed through the under side of the calico through the scrap piece and secured it. Next I did a running stitch through the one edge of scrap fabric and pulled the material down the thread to get the gathered effect.
I did this until I secured the material to the other edge of the square I drew on the calico, carry on the technique around all sides of the square. Evaluation.

Overall this technique was a little tricky because of the size of material I had to work with and getting the material to gather evenly to tack in place, this is because the thread would get knotted on the under side of the calico.
I had to cut the thread multiple times because of it getting knotted and it took longer to finish. 

Heath and Safety.
1. Bags under tables not on desks
2. Coats on the back of chairs not on the floor.

3.Sewing needles used correctly. 

Beading:

Gathering 2 squares of calico and interfaced one of these, 
I used the piece that wasn’t interfaced and placed it in the embroidery hoop, I had bought my beads and threaded my needle.
I pushed the needle through the bottom of the calico and pulled it through to secure it, next I played around with techniques, sometimes I practised sewing one bead, then doing a line, then doing a line with different sized and shaped beads in to see what techniques looked the best. 

This is the result.

Next I took the interfaced piece which was stiffer and decided to make a pattern out the beading, I got a pencil and drew on my design and starting sewing.

Here I experimented with scattering the beads at different distances so I can see what I would like most for my design, I will also do this on different types of blue material so it gives me a realistic view of how the technique will look on my corset.

Evaluation.

I think the beading went well because I enjoyed experimenting using different types of beads and design shapes, I saw the advantages of using beading on my corset because I can make really pretty patterns out of it. The only problems I had were running out of different types of beads and not being able to carry on doing more designs. My square of calico didn’t quite fit the embroidery hoop therefore the material came slightly loose.

Draping.

I had about a metre of fabric and pinned the one edge to the centre front line on the mannequin, this was my starting point for the corset as this panel would be on the fold to create the centre front. 

Where the front side line is I made a dart so that the fabric was pulled tight against the mannequin and pinned it in place.
I moved the fabric on the side seam line and made another dart and pinned it again.
I did this technique to the side back but didn’t change the centre back because this is where my corset would have the hook and eyes.
I used black and white fashion tape to make the shape of the top of my corset.

Creating the panels. 
Once I had done this I took the calico off the stand and laid it flat on the table. Because the tape was gathered together over the darts I cut the tape and let the darts lye flat.
The next stage was to draw in the lines properly on where the darts were. I did this in pencil and drew where the pins where placed to get a accurate line and get correct measurements, I did this to all the darts so that there were no gaps. 

I transferred these new panels on to pattern paper. All panels had to be smooth and straight unless there was an obvious curve that could be smoothed in with a french curve. I added 1cm seam allowance to the panel at the sides, although I could of added more to allow room for mistakes.

Now it was was time to do a lay plan, cut the panels out and sew them together.This was the outcome. 

Shaping.
I didn’t my corset want it to be to long or to short, therefore I took measurements off another corset that had the same shape I wanted to use and used it as a guideline, I marked on in pencil the shaping just on one side because I could take it off the stand, fold the one half onto the other side and transfer the shaping on the other side by cutting it out getting the exact same shaping on both sides. 

Changes to my design

My original idea’s for my corset had some problems, I needed to change some parts of it so I would be able to complete it. 

Beading.

I was not originally going to dye the corset, instead I would get the colours for the corset by covering it in aqua, clear and dark blue crystals.
I had to change this because I originally had no idea how long it would take to sew beading to make a pattern until i made a sample, I quickly realised it would be very time consuming to hand sew every single crystal on to my whole corset and from looking at other examples of corsets and listening to past experiences I didn’t think I could do it all on my own.
Beading would also be very costly, I had no estimate of how many of each colour I would need, other things i had to think about was buying the material and see how much money would be left over, if there wasn’t enough to cover the beading then it would be out my own pocket. 

 

Hooks and Eyes.

I was going to have the hook and eyes on the corset at the front, I changed this idea too because it i thought it would make my pattern cutting more complicated as my centre front panel is on the fold and i would had to cut out 2 extra panels instead of just having one and I thought this would confuse me more and again be more time consuming, this worked out better in the long run because I had to change my patterns peices and make them bigger but I didn’t have to change the centre front. 

Inspiration for my Corset.

The first stage for making my corset was picking a design.

The brief given wanted us to look a the colour palette predictions for spring/summer 2013. I did this by scouring the internet at designers collections for next summer as well as looking in magazines.

From this i got the colours black, white, red, baby pink and baby blue. I got attracted to the idea of using the colour baby blue and i thought of things that associates with water that i could use. Whatever i chose to do would be incorporated into my final collection.  

I needed to create a theme, I looked at using water and created a mind map exploring ideas of how i could use it such as using seashells/sand/sea animals ect. This lead me to created a mood board for inspiration printing off loads of image and using cut outs from magazines as well as using fabric samples and beading.

I looked at designers who had used water as a theme in their collections such as Alexander Mqueen and Toni Francese in their 2010 collections and Peter Pilotto in his spring/summer 2012 collection.

This gave more ideas to work with now that i had picked a theme, the next stage was to identify what style of corset i liked. Another part of the brief said we should make a corset timeline which I had done, so i looked at my corset timeline and identified that after the 1800’s corsets were made longer and were more curvy at the waist, I liked this style the most wanted to use it in my own design.

Because the corset design is meant to be avant-guarde, I needed to add something slightly unusual to it, whilst looking through pictures I saw a picture of a corsets I came across a image of a corsets with pleats on, which I liked because it looks different and decided i wanted to use incorporate this into my design too.

I wanted to use 2 different colours of blue in my designs, aqua blue and navy. I wanted it to start and the top with aqua and move down to navy, to do this I would need to look at using fabric dye. 

My final design will be a long corset with a straight neckline, it will be dyed from navy blue through to aqua blue and have big pleats that will be navy blue also on the top and bottom of it, it will be done up at the back using hooks and eyes.