next corset

Summer is just around the corner and I've been wanting to make a summer, or ventilated, corset. On page 81 of Corsets and Crinolines is a pattern from the late 1880's that looks like it will be perfect for trying this out. Here is an illustration of a similar corset.

By the late 18oo's corsets were so heavily constructed they must have been uncomfortable to wear in the heat. To ease this discomfort some corsets were designed from mesh fabric like the one in this ad.

Or they had latticework like this one from the Victoria & Albert Museum.

© Victoria & Albert Museum (museum number T.184-1962).

Honoring the ground rules I rummaged through the fabric I have jammed in boxes, and found this.

A couple of years ago I bought some linen at a garage sale and folded up in the same plastic grocery bag was the adia cloth. I didn't want the adia cloth, but in the way garage sale haggling can work I got a couple dollars off on the condition that I not leave it behind. Now someone's unrealized embroidery project will become my corset.

I've never used a spoon busk before, or worked with adia cloth, or done cording, so this should be interesting.