----- Original Message -----
From: "Anne" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "H-Costume List Post" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 12:41 AM
Subject: [h-cost] 1844 Corset Again-Busk Questions
Hello all!
I am glad to see some discussion going again. To add to it I am still
(very slowly) working on this corset. My next question for those who have
made it before is about the busk. Based on the recent discussion of the
split busk being invented in 1853, it seems I should use a wooden busk for
this transitional corset. However, given the curve along CF, how is that
going to work? Following the seam line exactly, the corset front is quite
straight until just below the waist, where it suddenly curves inward
ending just above my pubic bone (I hope that makes sense). Do you suppose
you need a specially made curved busk? Can you short cut around this and
either have the busk end before the lower curve or straighten out the seam
line? Obviously that is going to change the line of the corset. The
pattern indicates the busk runs entirely top to bottom--16.5 inches on me.
I am concerned that if I get a busk that long that I am going to have it
poking me in the pubic bone when I sit down. I already have this problem
on my existing 1830s corset when I bend over to tie my shoe or cook.
Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated and thanks in advance!
Anne
--
Anne Dealy
adelaideatgenevahistoricalsociety.com
(be sure to change "at" to "@")
OK I know I'm replying to this a month late (but I just found some new
info), but if it's the pattern I'm thinking of,
http://www.originals-by-kay.com/corsetry/history/1844cors.GIF which is also
reproduced in Corsets and Crinolines then the curve at the bottom is
designed to make the busk act like the later 1870s-80s spoon busk. I was
just reading Jean Hunisett's 'Period Costume for Stage and Screen 1800-1909'
and she recommends taking a tuck on either side of the bottom of a straight
busk to simulate the shaping of a spoon busk. You can change the shape of
the centre front, but (depending on your figure size and shape) you might
actually appreciate the spoon busk effect, I've almost finished fitting my
mockup of this corset, I straightened out the centre front line but I'm
actually considering changing it back to the original shape now I know what
it does. As for the length of the busk being too much, there are 2 dots at
the bottom of the pattern illustration which makes me think maybe they were
eyelet holes to keep the bottom section of the corset together, suggesting
to me that the busk doesn't go all the way to the bottom of the centre
front, (although this is purely speculation)
Elizabeth
--------------------------------------------
Elizabeth Walpole
Canberra Australia
ewalpole[at]tpg.com.au
http://au.geocities.com/e_walpole/
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