Yesterday I quickly was able to put together the bustle piece of the costume. It still took most of the day but that is a considerably less amount of time compared to the other pieces so far.
The most difficult part about this was trying to understand the directions for folding and that was only because I have never made a bustle before. There are two main center pieces that fold but only one set of side pieces and I kept trying to figure out why I was missing those dots until I realized that that is how the draping was supposed to look. Silly.
I started by attaching the side pieces to the middle piece. For this I used french seams and I cannot stress them enough. They just look so much better than anything else that could be done. The directions do not call for them, but I feel like it is much better if they are used because it will improve the quality of the garment. French seams will hide the raw edges, prevent visible fraying, and look better than serging the ends.
After the pieces were sewn together I attached bias tape along all the edges except for the top.
When all of the bias tape was sewn on I turned down the top one inch and pressed it. Then I took the very top edge and turned it inward 1/4" and then folded the whole thing back where the one inch mark was. I sewed close to the 1/4" seam to create a casing for the drawstring.
Then I laid it flat on the ground and marked out my dots and lines for folding. I am going to go through the steps for how did the folds just because to me it was confusing at first and then got easier once I got a visual. (Looking back I don't know why it was confusing.)
The directions say to pull up and tack the fabric in place. I took this to mean sew a tiny spot and not the entire fold line. That may be overthinking to sew the length of the fold line but who knows what they really want sometimes with these patterns!
So I started from the bottom like it says and folded the line and brought it up to the lower center dot.
I tacked that down by making a few stitches to secure the fabric in place. Then I folded the next dot/fold line and brought it to the upper center dot and secured it in place.
This only left the two side dots to be folded and brought up to the top dots. After doing so and securing them with stitches the bustle was done. I chose to leave the draw string section adjustable instead of measuring where it needed to go and then securing the tie in place. I wanted to be able to bring it in more or less depending on who was wearing it. I really don't know why this part couldn't be a one size fits all deal.
I took pictures of this with the bustle being both under and over the corset just to show off how it looks without something smushing the top down.
With the corset over the bustle.
I was thinking about making the bustle longer thinking that this one would be too short but I am glad I didn't. I am short enough that this is long on me.
I have started working on the skirt so that should be my next post with possibly the gauntlets and then that it it for the Simplicity 1091 pattern since I am not making the top that goes with this pattern. The pattern for the top I am using will be Simplicity 1093 - the Snow White top.
Thanks for reading!!
Part 1 Part 2 Part 4
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