Ooh La La Pin-Up Sew-Along... Rosettes, and we're done!

The pattern we're using...

Yesterday we talked about attaching our garter straps and Sarah posted a great tutorial on making lovely bows to embellish our corsets with.

Photo courtesy of Ohhh Lulu.

Today I'm taking the frou frou up a notch and adding a couple of contrasting rosettes to sit over my two front garter straps.

Here's a very simple way to make a delicate vintage style rosette.
I started with some lovely 1/2" wide vintage rayon binding ribbon. My piece is about 6" long and made a rosette about 3/4" in diameter. For a fuller rosette, just use a longer length or ribbon.

Here I used a contrasting thread so you could see my stitches but I suggest using a matching thread. Knot your thread and start stitching at one end, curving down, running along the bottom length, and then curving back up.
My stitches are about 1/8" long.

Pull on your un-knotted thread end, gathering and curling the rosette as you pull. You might want to arrange the folds a little as you go to get them to look as you wish. Then you simply pull your raw edges to the back side (trimming any excess) and secure with a few hidden stitches.

Knot your thread in place and then you're ready to sew your rosette on whatever you're embellishing.

 I anchored my rosette in place with a few small stitches to the back and then brought my needle up through the center of the flower, adding a pearl bead to my needle, and then brought my needle back through the center again and secured it to the back side.

And you're done! Easy, right?

I don't know about you, but that finishes it up for me. It's just enough frill to make my corset complete!

Below are WAAAAAAAY too many pictures of my finished corset for your viewing pleasure.

Side view.

My "A-shaped" tucks.

Some of you might be wondering what these little "A-shaped" seams are on my corset back. Shortly after I went to the trouble of sewing my french seams, my doctor put me on a trial medication to fix some nasty nerve damage in my arm. The pills are working great but one of the several odd side effects I got was losing 2" from my hips over a few short days. (hurrah for pills!)

I didn't want to re-sew my seams over again so instead, I took the next step of stitching my French seams flat and just folded over my "too much" on the bottom and top-stitched it in place. It looks like a natural feature of the corset, and now it fits!

I added a couple of them at the top of the seam too where I had about 1/2" too much, though I didn't get them quite even.

The lace overlay on my side panels.

Lace overlay, and a flat-stitched French seam.

 And here are a couple on my dress form so you can see where the corset rests on a (somewhat unrealistic) human figure.

My dress form is named "Slut Jane the Second." She's named after a very life-like mannequin (the original Slut Jane) that was a permanent feature in my mother's antique shop when I was growing up. She had a lovely, nude figure with no head, and was essentially a perfect pair of breasts, trim waist, and flawless buttocks on which one could display lingerie nicely. I'm not sure why she was named thus, but it might have had something to do with the fact that she sold vintage lingerie very well and was constantly being undressed.

Well, there you have it! I know that Sarah will be posting pictures of her finished corset very soon so I'll link to that here when it's available.

I know a lot of you are still working on your corsets. There's no hurry! We'll do a few updated round-up posts with pictures from those who want to share their corsets for the next few months if necessary. If you want to show your corset off, (or have others commiserate with you if it didn't work out) you can email photos to me at afewthreadsloose@gmail.com. (you can choose to be completely anonymous if you like).

You don't have to take photos of yourself wearing the corset by any means! You can take pictures of it on a dress form, laying flat, clipped to a skirt hanger, or get creative and take some super silly photos! Sarah and I are both dying to see what you've all made. There are 80 + of you so far, sewing your little hearts out, and we're so glad to have each and every one of you who've joined us!

I have put together a Picassa album (I'm experimenting with google +, any tips?) of all the pictures sent to me or posted to other blogs so far.

You might be interested to see how a few other bloggers are faring with the sew along, too.
Check out Charlotte's gorgeous blue (why didn't I think to do blue?!) corset on Sew Far Sew Good.
See how Charl's clever and colorful corset is coming along at Sew Glamorous.

Have you blogged about the Sew-Along? Let me know, and I'll add you to the list!

-----If you want a recap of all the sew-along posts so far, you can find everything here!---------