Work In Progress: Queen Charlotte

Emerald City Comic Con is just six weeks away and I’m only about 50% done with my Queen Charlotte (Bridgerton) cosplay. Time slips by so fast! Fortunately, I finished one of the hardest parts - making the corset. I thought about purchasing a corset for this cosplay but making it was cheaper since I already had most of the materials on hand, and it was far more rewarding in the long run.

The Corset

It has been over a decade since I last made a corset, yet somehow the techniques came back to me like riding a bike. I had no trouble getting back into the flow and only made a couple mistakes, like accidentally poking the holes for the busk through all of the layers of fabric instead of just the top layer. Oops. No worries, you can’t even see it from outside.

The sewing pattern I used was the Rococo stays pattern from Corsets by Caroline on Etsy. Caroline has some gorgeous corset patterns and I will probably make another by her in the future.

Although the process of cutting out all 32 panels that make up this two-layer corset was quite tedious and my least favorite part of corset making, I still thoroughly enjoyed sewing this corset and I may make another one soon just for the hell of it.

The Skirt

I had previously begun draping the skirt and playing around with how deep to make the pleats but I decided to scrap everything and start over once I shifted my focus to the corset. While working on the corset, some new ideas for how to handle the skirt came to mind and I think it will work out better in the long run.

It’s interesting how sometimes the solution to problems will show up once you take a step back and give yourself space to focus on other things.

Originally I was going to sew the center lace panel onto the pleated skirt, instead of making a separate underskirt, for the sake of saving fabric and simplifying dressing. However, I changed my mind as I surmised that having the underskirt be a separate piece would improve the over all drape of the garment. I probably won’t make a full underskirt, just half a skirt with a tie in the back.

Of course, as soon as I changed my mind about making an underskirt, my 25 yard bolt of muslin, which has lasted several years, finally ran out. I ordered a new bolt from Fashion Fabrics Club and hopefully it arrives by the end of the month so I can use it for the underskirt, but at worse, I have other scrap fabric I can use for the parts that will be unseen.

The Ribbons

On days when I don’t feel like tackling a large part of the project, I try to do smaller tasks since a little progress is better than no progress.

Gathering ribbon was my small task for this week which gave me the opportunity to test out the gathering foot on my sewing machine for the first time.

For this part I needed to gather two different widths of ribbon, 1.5” and 4”, since I will be layering them, one on top of the other.

The gathering foot was very effective at gathering 1.5” ribbon but far less effective at gathering the 4” ribbon. For the wider ribbon, I had to use to the gathering foot with a long stitch and sew in short 1-2 foot sections, then take the ribbon out of the machine and hand pull the gathers to my desired fullness. It was a tedious process but only took about an hour.

The Next Step

My task for this weekend is to finish up the bodice so that next week I can start up the skirt again. If all goes well, I should have 80% of the gown completed by the end of the month. Then I can tackle the challenge of making the queen’s intimidating wig!