So, we start sewing our corset.
We need to conduct some preliminary work before sewing: we need to join the lace pieces and the main pieces with hand stitches.
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I start from the corset body. I will put aside the cups and the central piece for now.
I will work with the front and back side first. I unpin the pieces very carefully. I try not to pull and deform the pieces. The most important thing is not to mix up the right and the wrong sides as both mesh and lace don’t have the obvious right side.
I place the front side lace piece face up on the corresponding mesh piece.
We need to join these pieces with hand basting. I recommend making basting along the cup sewing line, which we preliminarily marked. There is no need to mark seam allowances on the upper and lower vertical cuts. Pin the pieces together for easy and accurate joining. Join the pieces with running stitch.
Prepare several needles with inserted threads to speed up the process. Thread should not be too long. Its length should not be longer than your arm swing. It is better to have more needles with a normal thread length than few needles with too long threads.
Hand stitches should be loose. Don’t pull the pieces.
It is very convenient to use thin and long bead needles for such work. A bead needle is 8-10 cm long and it is extremely thin. It perfectly pierces fabrics, slides easily and makes lots of stitches simultaneously, which, certainly, speeds up the work. Put a thread cutter on your finger for convenience.
I know there is a great temptation to make machine stitches without basting. You can make machine stitches when you are 100% sure that your sewing machine doesn’t pull thin fabrics. In no case you should make continuous machine stitches in a circle along the whole piece. There are some peculiarities and some professional secrets, so it is better to use hand basting at the beginning.
Don’t make a knot on the thread and bar tacks at the end of the stitching. Basting should be removed easily.
So, we have completed our work with the front side piece.
I will follow the same steps with the second front side piece and the back pieces. By joining the mesh and lace pieces I clearly define the right and wrong sides of each piece.
And the last step – we need to cut the continuous thread in the corners of all basted pieces, which will make easier to undo basting later.
Now I move to the front central piece. Here we have two peculiarities: there is a bone in the center and the upper part should be neatly finished.
I place the lace and mesh pieces right side facing, which are pinned together. Before finishing the upper cut I insert bone casing between the layers of lace and mesh, which will serve as a tunnel for the central bone.
There is no need to unpin the mesh and lace pieces completely in order to insert bone casing. You can simply bend mesh at the top, ensure that lace is placed face up, measure the desired length of bone casing and place it with velvet right side between lace and mesh.
Therefore, the lace piece is on the bottom facing up, bone casing is on lace facing up and the position of the central bone is marked on the mesh piece. So, I place the bone casing along the marking in the center of the piece and fix it with pins. We need to finish the upper cut, so the bone casing should be absolutely perpendicular to stitching.
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