The Pattern Compendium

The
Pattern Compendium
© Kirsty Sapsford - Not for resale or redistribution.
What You Will Need page 2 The Historic Collection: page 16
Taking Your Measurements page 3 Pattern 8 – 1600s corset page 17
Resizing the Patterns in this book page 4 Pattern 9 -‐ 1730 corset page 18
Pattern Guide page 7 Pattern 10 -‐ 1776 corset page 19
Pattern 11 -‐ 1780 corset page 20

The Modern Collection: page 8
Pattern 1 – Long-‐line underbust page 9
Pattern 2 – Waspie underbust page 10
Pattern 3 – Waist corselet or ‘corset belt’ page 11
Pattern 4 – Straight topped push-‐up overbust page 12
Pattern 5 – Sweetheart overbust page 13
Pattern 6 – Plunge overbust page 14
Pattern 19 -‐ 1904 ribbon corset page 28
Pattern 7 – Corset dress page 15

1
What You Will Need

You won’t need a lot to turn the corset patterns in this book into full-‐scale, personally resized pattern pieces for your
individual figure:

Pattern paper is an obvious essential but squared or dot and cross pattern
paper will make the job of scaling up a whole lot easier as all the patterns in
this book have been placed over a grid. Each square on the grid equals a
centimetre so choose paper in cm rather than inch increments. If your local
shop doesn’t have squared or dotted paper, eBay and various other online
sewing shops do.
TIP – if you can’t find gridded pattern paper buy a roll of grease proof baking
tray paper or tracing paper from your local dollar/pound store and place it
over a sheet of graph paper (if you can’t find large graph paper stick some A4
sheets together). The graph paper will show through the tracing paper so you’ll only ever need the one sheet, this is a
much cheaper option than buying lots of pattern paper.
A tape measure to take your own (or the intended corset wearers) measurements is also needed.
A sharp pencil & a ruler for marking the paper, and that’s it!
2
Taking Your Measurements
Before drawing out your pattern we first need to take some measurements to correctly alter the pattern size. You should
be wearing a comfortable bra for this. It also helps to have a second person if you are taking your own measurements, to
make sure the tape measure doesn’t slip down at the back etc, a mirror is a good substitute and useful for finding your
waist line. Not all the measurements below will be necessary for every corset so check the pattern first.

Write your measurements below:

1. Bust ____________________________

2. Underbust _______________________

3. Waist ___________________________

4. Top hips _________________________

5. Full hips _________________________

6. Bust to underbust _________________

7. Underbust to waist ________________

8. Waist to top hips __________________

9. Top hips to hips ___________________

3
Resizing the Patterns in this book

Resizing the patterns in this book to your individual body shape is
very straightforward. Where your measurements exceed those of
the pattern, simply cut the individual pattern pieces as shown to the
left and edge them apart till the required size is achieved, then join
up the edges.
TIP – remember the pattern is for one half of the corset so you only
need to allow for half the size increase.

To make the pattern smaller, simply cut the pattern pieces and edge
the two halves together, overlapping till the required size is
achieved, then join up the edges again.

Like so.
4
This can be done to alter width as shown on the previous page, or to alter height, as below:

To get a perfect fit you need to check and alter the width at the bust, underbust, waist,
top hips and full hips lines so the corset goes in and out the right amount in the right
places. You also need to check the vertical distance or height between these lines.
This may mean cutting each pattern piece into several sections and moving them around,
then sticking them back together or sticking other pieces of paper to the back to bridge
any gaps. It may seem fiddly but in actual fact this method makes precision pattern sizing
really easy.
5
In case that sounds a little confusing, here are two examples:
The pattern piece on the left has been altered first for someone tall and curvy: it has been made longer and wider, with
extra width at the bust and hips. The pattern piece was cut into 8 sections.
And secondly for someone petite and less curvy: the height and width have been reduced with further reduction in width
at the bust and hips. This piece was cut into 10.

TIP – When sizing a corset it is important
to take off 2inch/5cm width at the waist
and bust to give a proper fit and a further
2inch/5cm width all over to allow for the
gap at the laces, this also allows for
progressive tightlacing. Deduct these
amounts from your measurements on
page 3 before altering your pattern
pieces.
6
Pattern Guide
All of the following patterns are colour coded for ease of use, the meaning of each colour can be found in the key below: -‐-‐

KEY
The bust, underbust, waist, top and full hips lines all have their own colour.

Boning channels are clearly marked in pink. Large fully boned areas are blocked out in pink with
stitch direction arrows to indicate the directions of the bone channels.

Piping is marked out in green and again large areas of piping are blocked out in green with stitch
direction arrows to indicate piping direction.

The busk is always clearly marked out in yellow with a black border and lacing bones in blue,
although these only appear in the modern patterns as historic lacing consists of a row of eyelets
with a boning channel either side.

Stitch direction arrows, as mentioned above, illustrate the exact direction in which boning or
piping should run in block areas of boning or piping.

Connection point markers mark the exact point two pattern pieces should be joined at and each is
colour coded with its adjoining partner.

7

8
Pattern 1 – Long-‐line underbust

9

Pattern 2 – Waspie underbust

10
Pattern 3 – Waist corselet or ‘corset belt’

11
Pattern 4 – Straight topped push-‐up overbust

12
Pattern 5 – Sweetheart overbust

13
Pattern 6 – Plunge overbust

14
Pattern 7 –
Corset dress

15

16

Pattern 8 –
1600s corset

17

Pattern 9 -‐ 1730 corset

18

19

20

21

22

23

24
25

26

27
Pattern 19 -‐ 1904 ribbon corset

28

29

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Write your measurements below:

Pattern 2 – Waspie underbust

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