Truly Victorian Corset cover

 When we talk about the layers of Victorian clothing, we always mention the corset cover (which is a little blouse like of thing to -as its name says- cover up the corset, and soften the line the corset's enge gives), but quite often skip it, as it rarely seen. Yes, some ballgowns have the edges peaking put (or they sew lace edging to imitate that, like I did in my "Hungarian" bodice. Now, I could not put making one off any longer, and you will see in my next post why. 

Unfortunately I decided in the last minute, that I am making one, and rushed with the sewing, so no pictures about the making it, sorry. 

I ordered, printed and taped together the Truly Victorian TV107 pattern in one late night. I did not make a mock up, as my fabric was a leftover piece anyway. I found it in one of the chainstores of the factory outlets that peppers the long boulevard in downtown. They have six stores in the city, five of them along one tramline, that goes trough on that boulevard. The truth to be told I think Hungarian reenactors do hunt those stores, because sometimes there are treasures in there. I have many a dresses from fabrics picked up there. In one of the stores I go a little bit less because it is in between two stops, and I seldon get off and walk there, but in the end of november I did for some reason, and in the store of factory rejects and leftovers there was a pile of stuff they even reject, and in that pile there was two piece of white linen. You know me and and linen have a love affair, I have a hard time saying no to it, even if it is any color... much more so, if it is white. Now, these pieces were crupled, dirty, and even pieced, but I got them anyway. At home I threw them into the washing machine (linen needs to be preashed anyway), with some stronch washing detergent, bleach and baking soda, and after a hot cycle, it was lovely clean and soft. From the smaller length, I took off the narrow strip that was piece don, and put it away (It is a perfect size to do an embroidered 16-17th century coif with), and I was left with just enough to put up the pattern pieces. I also have a box full of lace, and I dug up a piece that was left over from some petticoat, which was just enough for the decoration on the front, along the neckline and one sleeve... I had another piece, but I wasn't keen on cutting that, because if I do that, I am sure next time I will miss that dearly, however as I checked, I found that it was also pieced, and the length that was sewn on was like 2 cm longer than what I needed for the second sleeve. This way I felt less apprehensive taking it off the roll. 

As usual I sewn most of the long, basic seams with a machine (after all it was for the 1860-ies, when sewing machines were already a thing), but I finished the inside edges by hand. 

As for the pattern it is straightforward, goes together quite easily, but I needed to fit the heck out of it, because the size I cut out was way to big on me. The instructions unfortunately do not give us the measurements in cm-s, only inches, and I was too lazy had no time to do the calculations.Now either I remembered wrong, which size I used for the bodice last year, or something else was up, but then again, it is much easier to solve the problem of things being to big, than vice verse.