squarepicThis gorgeous black and yellow Symington corset is a real show-stopper. Here, Michelle walks us through its construction, step by step. 

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This guide is amazingly clear and informative! I'm starting on my fifth corset based on this pattern and I will certainly be applying some of the new tips and tricks detailed here.

However, I do have one question regarding the cording on panel 5. On my first attempt making this corset I inserted the cording after sewing the channels (as you did for the corset in this article) but I found that this resulted in a small amount of vertical shrinkage to the panel, which slightly distorted the shape of the pattern piece and made it more difficult to match to panels 4 and 7. I have since bypassed this problem by creating a larger precorded piece of combined fashion and strength layers and then cutting out panel 5 from that piece in order to preserve the pattern piece's original shape and size. This has worked decently for me but I was wondering if you have another way that you get around the problem?

Once again, this is an amazing article! Thank you so much for putting it all together.

Hello! I'm glad this has been useful to you! :)

Yes, I found the same--the shrinkage is tiny but annoying. The last go-around, I made the little pieces, corded them, THEN sewed them to the big pieces. As long as you stay consistent with the match points (i.e. say you sew the first edge on the bottom line or top line, do the same on the other pieces) they shrink the same, so they'll match on the other side too--it just might be a little shorter overall. Or you could even cut the rectangles a couple millimeters taller than needed to compensate for the vertical shrink. Hope this is helpful ^_^
I also suspect that the smaller the cord is, the less problematic this becomes...I'm looking into sourcing an even smaller paper cord as I think this one is still a little bigger than I'd like.

Thank you for the wonderful work. I adore the final result. It is so beautiful.
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