Drafting a Bodice from a Corset

I keep saying goofy things to people who mail me asking for bodice patterns -- like, "Oh, just use your corset." It's been suggested that I might someday want to clarify that one. (Sorry.... Y'all all know that I'm just a doof by now.) I was working on a real quick irish costume for a halloween party back around, well, halloween, and I took the pattern off a corset that more or less still fit right, because it was a lot faster than making a new corset to get the dress dummy down to a more correct size, or figuring out where I'd put the corset that she had been wearing that more or less does the trick. And, basically, when you start a costume the day before you want to wear it, it doesn't matter how simple it is -- you're not going to have time to mess around with setup stuff you should have done a long time ago.

Anyway, the process goes more or less like this: Start with one corset. It should fit, and ideally, you should be able to lie it out flat. In this case, I had to pick apart the stitches holding one of the straps to the body of the corset. Now, also ideally, I should have had some sketch of what I was planning to do. I kinda skipped that step. Basically, I'm trying to take a front closing corset with a pretty serious below-waist dip in front, and make a pattern for a bodice with a shallow dip and edges that set about 2" apart when laced down.

Place the bodice flat on a piece of muslin. I habitually make half patterns -- since both sides of me are roughly the same, I only trace out half a pattern. I've got the center back of the corset on the edge of the muslin. The strap hangs off the top a little, but that's not an issue, because I'm going to alter the pattern so that the front half of the strap comes off the front of the bodice.

This is a trace around the edge of the corset, with the strap sketched in the front. This corset originally had a slight (very period) curve to the front edge, but I've eliminated that.(Weight loss and the accompanying deflation of my boobs rendered that an unnecessary consideration. Hopefully, the two bald men will stop sulking and perk back up sometime in the near future.... :( )

When I'm done tracing the existing corset, I've found that it's helpful to go back, darken the edge lines, and label the patterns so that I know what I'm looking at when I find it discarded in a pile of scrap in a few months. ;)

This is now a master pattern for the corset, with a slight alteration to the strap. It's neatly labeled, and hopefully, I will not loose this one the way I lost the original pattern for the corset.

Again, I've put the pattern flat on a sheet of muslin, and traced around it. Now I can start making some changes.

The first thing to do is to change the closing edge. I want to create about a 2" gap between the edges when the bodice is laced. To do this, I'm taking an inch off the front edge of the pattern.

I want the dip at the waist to be far less severe and far more, well, peasanty. Peasants frequently had bodices that were straight at the waist, but personally, I think that makes me look like a barrel in a skirt. (Yeah, it looks about as flattering as it sounds.) I've sketched in a new waist line, somewhat above the former one in front.

The altered pattern, all nicely labeled and cut out.

So, how did it work? Well, here's the original corset....

And here's the bodice that came from the pattern. More pictures of this dress can be found in the Gallery. The front laces down a little closer at the bottom than I was going for, but that's about my only complaint with it.