My own hand-drafted pattern from a V&A museum piece. Spiral steel , silk, and herringbone twill lining.
That feathering is spectacular! Someday I need to try my hand at corset making.
this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2025
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Thank you!
e: and I suck at embroidery, lol. If you're good at both embroidery and sewing, you can do better than me!
Coulda fooled me, it’s gorgeous!
I can’t even do the beginner’s flower. It looks like I was forced to eat thread until I vomited it in a circle. (e: which, to be fair, is kind of accurate.)
This is pretty because it’s all straight lines, lol.
Some truly beautiful period corsets have real embroidery at those stress points, all floral and whatnot. I couldn’t hope to do that, but I’ll bet some of you can.
Oh, so pretty! I haven't made any corsets for years, but I keep meaning to add flossing on the boning channels of some of my existing corsets.
(Context for nerds: I'm referencing the white embroidery at the tops and bottoms of some of the boning channels. As well as being decorative, this can have a functional benefit of holding the bones in place within the boning channel. I have a corset where a couple of bones ended up wearing a hole through the fabric and poking out, and I suspect this would have been less likely to happen had I used this technique)
Edit: could you share a link to the particular V&A piece you patterned this from?
Thank you! I think I mixed up a couple of my patterns in my mind (I’ve been working on 3 other designs from the V&A) – and I think this one is actually based on a model from The MET:
I had to add some space between the boning in places at the bust, because I’m not a size 0, lol, but the crazy amount of boning makes this more like a bullet-proof vest than any other corset I’ve made. I think it weighs like 2 pounds.
The flossing and trim was more inspired by this V&A model, though, and by another that I can’t find now:
I’d love to see your work!
e: I also roughly halved the number of bones, by roughly doubling their width (I like the stability of slightly wider spiral steel), plus an added gusset and some spacing because I have modern proportions, so that wasp waist doesn’t work on me. XD
Thanks so much for adding all this detail <3
Also wow, that's so heavy; it must feel like armour. Recently I was learning that apparently modern corsets are typically far heavier than historic ones were, and that this contributes to the popular idea of corsets as being uncomfortable cages. I've been meaning to buy some synthetic whalebone, because I've never used it before, and I am curious about the prospect of making a corset that has more boning and structure in it than other corsets I've made, but is also lighter (though perhaps a better way to experiment with lighter corsets would be to try some corded designs that wouldn't require me buying more things to add to my stash).
I thank you for sharing this; I am feeling wistful towards my past time as a hobbyist corsetière, and inspired to get back into it. There's a decent likelihood that I'll burn out before I actually get round to making something, but regardless, it's nice to revel in this atmosphere of creativity.
I’d love to see some of your work!
I’ve tried both cording and synthetic whalebone – I prefer spiral steel, but that’s likely because I like the more shaped 1880s to earlier eras.
Cording doesn’t give much support (it’s great for youth ‘training’ corsets, utility, and maternity corsets, though). Synthetic whalebone is either not conforming enough (the rigid stuff) or too conforming (the lightweight stuff ), in my opinion, but since corsets are so individualised, everyone will have favourites and my opinion could be dead wrong for you.
Funnily, even though spiral steel is pretty heavy, I find it to be perfectly supportive and very comfortable, and since it ‘breaks in’ after a few times wearing, the corset very soon fits you like a glove. If you unpick your own corset after a year or so of wear, you’ll find the spirals have shifted slightly in places to conform to your shape without losing structure. Synthetic whalebone doesn’t do that.
Sorry for going on about it, but it’s nice to find someone else with interest in this. Thanks for coming to my TED talk, lol.
Oh wow that's beautiful!
Thank you!