Maternity Corset Update...continued

Well, I think it's coming along nicely. I got both sides sewn, pinned it down the front for now, and made mock lacing to see how it would lace up. I think it'll work, at least to maybe 7 months or so. There's really only so far a standard corset will expand, so I'll be happy with this.

I'm really anxious to work on the bust pieces that open up for nursing, so I'll probably work on those tomorrow instead of finishing the main part for now.

Good night everyone!

Maternity Corset Update

Got a little bit done on the maternity corset -- namely I got one side put together and some boning inserted to see how it would lay. I'm pretty pleased with it so far. The bust openings are similar to a nursing corset I saw from 1870s, and I'll be attaching a flap there which will hook closed at the center front.

Shown below is the corset without the belly. This dress form is skinnier than I am usually, so I have to take into account that the corset will look rather "straight-up-and-down" on the form rather than on my real body. Trying it on my body will be the real test. :)

Next up: sewing up the other side and adding buttons/buttonholes along the front.

Seven Things...

Back on December 12th (December 12th!! Am I slow or what??), Zebu of Yearning For Purity tagged me for seven random things about me. They may or may not be things well known about me, but they are all things that I feel have either changed the course of my life or otherwise helped me become the person I am today. They are, of course, in no particular order:

1. I was a competitive Irish stepdancer. Not only did I "beat the odds" by being one of the few adult dancers (ie: late-20s, early-3os) in competition with the younger girls (who are notoriously more difficult to beat due to their stamina and higher standards of form and precision), I also performed with the school's dance company. Until a foot injury in 2006 which took me out of stepdance for good, I had only 2 more dances to win before I would have been competing in Championships. I regret that injury, as my dream was to at least make it to championships...but I do not regret the confidence, fitness and poise that dancing brought to my life. Having been a ballet dancer for a decade in my younger years, getting back into dance in my late-20s was a wonderful revival for my love of dance.
2. I nearly lost my sister. My sister Cathy has a condition called hydrocephalus, for which she has a shunt valve in her skull to regulate the pressure. If this shunt ever fails, her brain pressure can become so extreme that she could die. A few years ago, that very thing happened -- and she was alone, some 45-minutes away from the rest of the family while we were all at work. We found her in time to get her to the hospital, but the doctor told us that if we hadn't found her when we did, she would have likely been dead within hours. Within hours! God put into place certain things to happen at perfect times to get us over to her house to break in. If even one of those calls hadn't gone through, or if one person hadn't picked up the phone that morning, I might have been an only child today. The thought both haunts me and gives me great peace in the greatness of our Almighty God.
3. I dream of writing a novel. And when I was in college, I had a professor who liked my writing so much, he nearly demanded that I change my major from History to English. I haven't yet written much of anything since (although I have a few projects I work on occasionally), but that one professors encouragement made me believe I could. I never saw that professor again.
   
4. I witnessed a miracle. In my early twenties, I felt a call to tithe to our church the full 10%. But for several months, we found that we could either pay tithe or pay rent -- not both. In those instances, we paid our tithe and said a prayer. The miracle? We always had money for rent. Somehow.
   
5. A few years ago, my grandmother, mother, and sister were all diagnosed with breast cancer within 2 months of each other. Only my father and I were left to try to support them through surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. He and I felt like Job. Sadly, we lost our grandmother, although my mother and sister recovered nicely. It was a dark time, but the experience has given us a wonderful sensation that God is in control and how small we really are in comparison.
6. I didn't believe I was ever going to be a mother. Until I found out I was pregnant in October, I always had a feeling that God didn't want me to have children...like He didn't trust me with one of His little ones. The day I had a positive pregnancy test, I was so shocked and humbled that I couldn't even tell my husband until much later.
7. I've seen the AGE OF INNOCENCE film over 175 times. Yes, it's true. I love this movie, and I can't really say why, except for the clothes. (It's not the only film I love for its clothes, either.) This didn't really change my life, but it did affect my view on creating historical clothing, because it was the first time I'd seen such accurate costumes in a movie. There have been quite a few movies since with exceptional costumes, and in a way, it raises the bar for reenactors because if these movies can create clothing for actors that look like they stepped out of photographs, then we should be able to do the same thing for reenacting. I believe it was at this point, I began to insist on accuracy when it came to historical clothing. I rarely take shortcuts, even today.
   

Well, there are seven random things about me. If you would like to post your own, then I TAG YOU! :)

Adventures In Maternity

Now that I have been given the blessing of carrying a new little life inside of me, one of the things I've always been interested in making has been a maternity or gestational corset. Research on this project has been difficult, since there are very few extant gestational corsets out there, and most of the reproductions are based on later models -- from the 1870s. I discovered an 1877 patent for a laced corset that looks very much like a gestational corset, and interestingly also has a very similar shape to the 1860s. Since I can't imagine that maternity corsets sprung instantly into fashion in the 1870s, I can only presume that gestational corsets did, in fact, exist in the 1860s, and that they would look similar to the one in the patent drawing.

So I set to work, drafting a corset that will be lightly boned (with spring steel for added flexibility) and possibly corded, buttoned down the front and laced in the back, sides, and front sides for belly growth. I'll also be changing the laced bust with hook-and-eye bust openings for nursing, as I hope to wear this after birth as well.

I went ahead and cut the slits for the laced opening and for the bust (but the bust seam will actually be curved -- like a "U" shape). Don't laugh at my makeshift belly. :) I'm only 13 weeks right now and I imagine I'll get even bigger than I've represented here. But I wanted to see what the corset looked like when the belly began to grow. I did make the stomach slits higher than the corset in the patent as well -- as I presume my belly will eventually grow right up under my bosom. At any rate, here's to a new adventure! God Bless!