Makes sense? Corsets need to be hard wearing and give as little as possible at the waist. But if you’re like me and love the flamboyant and the patterned, you’ll find yourself drooling over thin cotton quilting fabrics and other such unsuitable materials. What is a girl to do?
Well fear not! There is a way round the strong un-stretchy fabrics rule. I’ve been using thin cottons to make corsets for a while now, teaming them up with coutil linings which works ok. But it does result in wrinkles on the surface of the corset when you wear it which looks unsightly. It can be minimised by stretching the fabric as you sew – cut the pieces a little smaller than the coutil ones so the tension flattens out the creases. But still it’s not ideal.
However, I have come across a better way of working with thinner, and even stretch fabrics! It does involve using a second layer of coutil though. You cut out your pieces along with the second set of coutil pieces. Then you lay your thinner fabric on the extra coutil and sew together – again keep the thinner fabric as taught as possible. Now you have strong stretch free pieces to work with and, although I haven’t tried it yet, a layer of ironable interfacing with the glue on both sides should stop even the smallest creases appearing, I’ll keep you posted on how this works out.
