Mind The Gap

Now that all the pieces are put together and pressed out flat, it’s time to put in the boning channels.  The channels are made of the ribbon that we gathered up earlier.  Place the channels by carefully sewing down one edge of the ribbon while holding it in place (or pinning it, but I find this difficult due to the thickness of the fabric), then sew down the other edge of the ribbon.  Repeat in each place a channel needs to go.

• Add one on each side of each seam.
• Add one in the center of each front panel.
• Add one in the middle of each back panel, about half an inch from the built-in bone channel at the back edge (this provides a place for the eyelets to go that is in between two bones, to help prevent deforming the fabric from the stretching)

Then, trim the top and bottom edges of the corset to even everything up, and stitch along the bottom edge, about 2/8 – 3/8″ from the edge.

Cut boning for each channel.  I usually measure from the stitching line at the bottom to about 3/4″ an inch from the top edge, this seems to leave enough space on either end of the bone to bind the edges of the corset with no problems.  If you’re using metal boning, tip each as appropriate, if using the plastic stuff (easy to get at the local fabric stores) trim the corners to round the ends off a bit.  If the boning is in one of those fabric sleeve things, you probably want to take that off so that the boning will fit in the channel.

Put boning into each of the channels (you may need to use a spare piece of boning to help push them in for the last half inch or so).

Now stitch along the top edge, 2/8 – 3/8″ from the edge.  With all your bones in place and sealed in, you can go have a beer and decide how you’re going to bind the edges and do the eyelets and all that good stuff!

The final installment: Binding, Eyelets & Lacing.

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