Making of an Corset Dress Part 1

 Hello people!

When I designed this dress, I wanted to

incorporate a corset into a dress since young girls have trouble lacing up corsets. So I thought about the different ways I could  have a laced up front but with minimum seams. I ended up designing a bodice with a front pleat with eyelets down the two sides.

 So today I will be showing you how to make a doll dress with a built in corset. For this dress I chose to use a brown texture suede and a slightly shiny blue fabric. I drafted the whole outfit from
scratch and cut it out.

For now, let's focus on the corset bodice. You can see that to add pleats, I simply cut the pattern and inserted an inch or so. Here is the extra wide bodice piece.

 

Then you pinch it and pull it towards the center.

 

Once you have these two pleats laid out, pin the edges so you can top stitch it. If you are like me, you might have a fancy foot to help you with the top stitching. Otherwise, just line up the edge of the fabric with a certain spot on your foot or sewing machine and be consistent the whole way down. Top stitching can really make an outfit look professional if down right.

Now as you can see, we have two little pin tucks on our bodice.

Pinch those and bring them towards the center. And now you can see how this is actually turning out.

Now for the eyelets! Grab your supplies and your patience (you might need it).

 

 First, before I started, I laid it out so I could see how many eyelets I wanted without overcrowding but without looking wimpy. Some thing to keep in mind. Give yourself more than a fourth inch seam allowance. You never know if you might need more. And measure them out so you can get a even corset. Do yourself a favor, make both sides aligned with each other. It would be awful to have a

lopsided corset.

Then I took a pencil (or a pen would work fine) and marked out each one. Unfortunately I could barely see each marking so I ended up marking one than adding the eyelet and repeating that progress one by one. 

 

Once marked, I pierced a hole with an awl while trying to stay on the small pencil mark. It's very annoying if you don't get right on the mark since you can't redo the hole. I just had to make it look even enough.

 

 Thank goodness the eyelets fit on the awl, it really makes the job a lot easier.

Shove it through the hole you just made. This might take a little bit of twisting and pushing.

And the fun part, smashing it. Yippee!

Yeah, one eyelet. Nine more to go...

If you don't go insane, here are your results of your pretty corset top. I thought it was worthwhile but it is a little tedious.

Really, this was the slow part of this dress. Personally, I prefer sewing to smashing eyelets but often I find myself creating more interesting designs if I combine sewing with other aspects.

So there you have it, now you can add corsets to any dress. Or if you take this concept, you can add it to skirts, sleeves or people clothes. The options are limitless. 

I'll have the next parts up soon. But in the meantime, if you liked this tutorial, comment below! Feel free to share what I should sew next.