Hey, it’s me, Hannah.

If you’re thinking to yourself, Hannah, what a great corset you’re wearing. Where can I get one of those? Well, I’m here to tell you exactly how I made it and how you can make one, too. Or rather, make a better one. There’s a couple of improvements I’d like to make as I recreate it for this video.

Additionally, I want to try to pattern this out in a more official capacity so that you can find it on my website, makinghannah.com, or in my Etsy store, which I’ll link to down below. I put together this pattern after I thrifted these French country toile curtains a few weeks back and I knew I just had to put it on a corset specifically one that laced in the back and highlighted this little castle detail, among the other illustrations.

And let me just nip it in the bud right away. There’s nothing particularly historically accurate about these stays or corset or whatever you want to call it. At best, you could probably say that this design was influenced by half boned transitional stays of the late 18th century, but that’s about as much history as I can contribute. There are so many fashion historians available on YouTube and other social media platforms that I would highly recommend you follow if that’s what you’re here for.

All right. On to the pattern. The pattern I used to make this corset was actually an adjusted pattern I had originally created to be a front lacing corset, using the tape method. I took some painter’s tape. I used it to wrap up my dress form, which I can adjust to my measurements. Then marked the outline and seam lines I wanted to this corset shape.

If you don’t have a dress form, you can also just use your body, especially if you have somebody there to help you apply and remove the tape. Then I carefully removed the tape from my dress form, cut out these pieces and added them to some paper with I think a half inch seam allowance. Once I had these pieces, I probably unnecessarily duplicated them onto some draft paper.

So for this corset I knew I wanted to add the laces to the back, so I just folded this middle back pattern piece about a half inch and added a half inch to the front center by just cutting the piece on the fold, but about a half inch out. Make sure you don’t forget the part where you mix up your pattern pieces, sew them together incorrectly, and have to seam rip them apart and put them back together the way you want.

We’re planners on this channel. Okay, so now that I’ve sewn all the panels together and sewn the interior and exterior pieces at the center back seam, I’m going to start mapping out my boning channels, I’m going to top stitch about a quarter inch, maybe a hair over a quarter inch away from those seam lines on each side so that I can stick my boning into those channels that I’ve created.

I also want to add some additional boning to the front, but I’m kind of just going to play around with it and see what I like. I just want I want to add a little bit more structure, but I also want it to be pretty and intentional. So that’s what I’m going to do. Okay, I am very pleased with how this turned out.

I decided to just go with a four extra bones straight down the front just to give a little extra structure, to this point. I’m very, very pleased with how it turned out. I was thinking of potentially adding some extra channels like kind of going across like this, but I don’t think I’m going to need it. I think this will provide enough structure.

And then once I had the bias taped to the top and bottom seams, I think that that will provide more than enough structure for everyday wear. So that’s what I’m going to get started on now. So working the bias tape around these curves is is difficult, but not impossible, maybe even a little dangerous when you get to curves like this.

All right. All done with a bias tape. That was a little tougher than I had anticipated. It’s not perfect, but it’s good where it matters. I feel like most of the clunkiness of the bias tape kind of stuck to the armpits. But the the front pieces look pretty good. The bottom I’m pretty pleased with. So I’m going to keep pushing forward and get my grommets placed or eyelets.

I think they can be used interchangeably. I don’t know. Leave a comment if if you have any insight. So now I’m going to map out where I want the grommets or eyelets or whatever to be placed on either end of the panel so that I can close it up in the back with a ribbon. And then I will also need to add grommets or eyelets to the strap and the top of the bodice so that I can connect with ribbon here as well.

So I’m going to get to hammering. I am so, so happy with how this turned out. The couple small tweaks that I made, I think did end up working out primarily adding additional boning on the seams. And then the little bit of boning I added here, I think the only thing that I really like, I don’t like about this iteration and that I want to make updates for in the pattern is I’d like to lengthen the shoulder straps a little bit.

I’d rather they come down almost like two inches further. And I think by adding additional boning, I think I did shorten or reduce the width of the entire piece so it doesn’t quite get as close. I know I at the beginning of the video I said that I wanted it to have a little bit more space back there, just as my weight fluctuates and things like that throughout the month.

But I think this is a little bit too much. I would like to see it come a little bit closer together and I think I lost a little bit more than I was anticipating by adding the additional boning and and creating additional seams through the boning channels. I did use different eyelets for this piece, and I like that they look a little bit better on the reverse than on my previous iteration.

So I can wear this wrong side out reversed, which I think is fun and cool, but these eyelets are just a little too small for my liking. But yeah, I just. I love this French toile so, so much. I think it’s so pretty. I’m definitely going to keep using the curtains to make other pieces, maybe a skirt or dress.

The pattern is so fun. All of the illustrations, all the little details. So yeah, this is definitely a bit of a challenge, especially coming up with a pattern that I can eventually share. In the end, I just, you know, I had a blast making it and I’m very proud of how it turned out. So if you had as much fun as I did, it would mean the world to me if you would like and subscribe. And if you do, I will see you back in two weeks for my next video.

Take care