More architecture than New York

I am a huge proponent of doing the "hardest/worst/most obnoxious/tedious/insert negative descriptor here" stuff first.  I am freshest at the beginning, I don't have a project's worth of frustration built up, and it makes the second half of the project just fly by.  In the case of Victorian gowns, I start with the bodice.  These things aren't always easy: to fit, to make, or to edit.  A small change in details really makes a huge difference in the fit of a bodice.  If it is too short, it rides up and looks funky; too tight and you can't get it buttoned; too large and you fall out of it.  You get the idea.  This is why I always make a bodice mockup, but even then the fabric and the thickness of all those layers can make a difference in fit.

All of that beautiful embroidered fabric would last maybe 15 minutes in a tight fit bodice without proper backing fabric.  In this case, I had leftover lightweight canvas from a pair of fall front breeches I made for a Regency event, and it proved the perfect weight.  I carefully pinned the "fashion fabric" to the interlining and sewed them together with a 1/4 inch seam allowance (well outside of the 1/2 inch seam allowance called for on the pattern pieces.  Those are then treated as one piece of fabric.  I then began to piece together the bodice per the pattern directions.  Once that is pieced together, all of the seams are pressed open so that everything lays nice and flat and you don't get any weird bunches around seams.  The seams on the left of this photo are not pressed yet, the seams on the right are pressed and ready to go.

Now comes the difficult part.  These things require some serious architecture to maintain their shape, even with the canvas interlining.  Every seam except the center back seam is boned.  I have done a bunch of corsetry and I have coils of boning, both German spring steel and straight steel varieties, lying around in my sewing collection.  I also have all of the tools required to hand cut and finish the boning: tipping fluid for the straight steel, steel tippers for the spiral steel, industrial grade wire cutters etc.  I could order the stuff pre-cut and pre-finished at measured intervals at a GREATLY marked up rate, but honestly I am too much of a perfectionist to accept something that isn't custom.  I measure the length of each of the seams carefully, twice, and then I cut and finish the boning.  I then need to case the boning- if the metal tipping falls off it can wear on the fabric and ruin a bodice!  Also, the metal boning is not the cleanest stuff in the world and it tends to leave a metallic residue on your hands, so touching the fabric after cutting boning is a major No-no!  So, I use either double fold bias tape or twill tape depending on the location of the bone and how much pressure will be put on it.  Twill tape for the bones under lots of pressure, double fold bias tape for the rest.  For anyone with interest in corsets or the tools needed to make them, I think Richard the Thread is one of the better suppliers out there:  http://www.richardthethread.com/

Once the boning is cut and cased, it then gets sewn VERY CAREFULLY into the seams of the corset.  When I case the boning, there is a tightly sewn boned side, and a tab about as wide as the bone itself that is just the fabric.  It is that fabric portion that gets sewn to the bodice itself.  I carefully pin the tab along the seam and try to make sure that no pins are in the way of the machine.  The trick here is that I then flip it over so that the pins are on the bottom (I know, crazy!!!) and sew carefully up the center of the seam, making for invisible stitches sunk into the seam itself.  I go painfully slowly making sure each stitch sinks nicely into the seam crease.

Once I finish the seam, I flip it over and make sure that I got the entire length of the boning sewn into the seam since I had to sew it blind.  This works exceptionally well IF and only if you pin things incredibly well.  This is a very slow part of the sewing and it does not pay to rush this portion.  If you do, inevitably something goes wrong and it is really hard to rip those seams out without damaging your fashion fabric!!!  In this photo, the white bars along the seams are the twill cased boning pieces I sewed into the side and side-back seams.
Once all the boning is sewn in, it feels so much more solid than it does before.  The bodice cannot bunch, ride up, or otherwise be funky.  It also helps everything to pull evenly when it is buttoned tightly, as was the style at the time.  There were no loose fitting garments, even for pregnant women!!
So, where am I at?
Sewing bodice pieces together: 1.5 hrs
Boning- 6 hours to cut, case, and sew in boning.
Total for this portion: 7.5 hrs
Total for this project: 12.6 hrs