Laughing Moon Silverado Corset #5

I set the grommets yesterday and cut and inserted the boning. Of course, on the first or second bone, I slipped and ripped through the lining with my seam ripper. Lesson learned: never, EVER use a seam ripper to push bones into place. Since it was on the inside of the corset, I was able to patch it and move on, but it was a tense moment. 

Awww man!

Semi-darning skills... AWAY!

I covered the darned area with a piece of twill tape. This gives the repaired area extra support and gives be a little padding so that the rough repaired area isn't right against my skin.  

I switched to a different tool for pushing the bones into their channels and pretty soon (an hour later) I was ready for a test run...!






All in all, I am ridiculously pleased with these results. This is a complicated project, but one that has proceeded smoothly.

Here are some thoughts on the current fit.

• it is very tight in the low hip, but I think this can be adjusted with some more careful lacing
• The bust fit is great! I can bend forward and lift my arms without becoming... indecent :) This is great for shared hotel rooms and, if I wanted to make this as a fashion corset, I would wear it in public. 
• I may still need to smooth out the top line at the back. 
• I will need to add an additional lacing hole at the top. I intentionally left it off until I put in the top binding because they will be close together. 

Here are some thoughts on construction. 

• I purchased this Freestanding Grommet Setting tool years ago. It was expensive, but nothing sets grommets as well as this. If you are planning on making things that require grommets as a regular part of your sewing life, it's worth the investment. 
• I also purchased the tipping die for 1/4" bones... so worth it. I don't know how many hours I've spent fussing with two sets of needle nose pliers and still not getting the tip to stay on. This is how the tip the pre-cut lengths. If you've already sprung for the grommet setter listed above, this is absolutely worth the $25. 
• Corset coutil has almost NO stretch to it, so I found that I got a radically different gap at the back opening with the coutil than I did with my other muslins. In the future, I'm going to make muslins with a 1" gap at the back. I think that  the lack of stretch in coutil and the added bulk of two layers of coutil seam allowances ate up at least that much. For this corset, it's not a deal breaker and I am still very happy with the results, but it's worth noting for next time. 
• I found that even though I carefully chose the size of my corset kit boning package, the adjustments that I made to the pattern meant that I could only use about 4 of the pre-sized bones unaltered. If you have most of your materials and a bone tipper, it's probably easier and cheaper to buy the 1/4" spiral boning in bulk and cut to fit as needed. 

Next up: binding the top and bottom edges, then flossing!