Sew Modern Sew Historical: Cosplay McCall's Shape Shifter Corset pattern M2032

I like the Cosplay McCall's patterns for the most part. The designs are fun and they are nicely packaged. I have several of their patterns and look forward to making them at some point, says every costumer ever...Never enough time in my day.

I made M2032 view B for a friend of mine. We have a goth/vampire themed event coming up and, well...I had some red skull mesh fabric. When in Rome. :-)

Pattern:
Two styles of under bust corset. View A-no hip gussets, View B-hip gussets. My friend has a fabulous hourglass figure so I thought view B would be perfect. Pattern is printed on thin tissue paper. For 21.00 you would think heavier paper would be included. The instructions are very clear and well written. They even have extra notes on putting in a waist stay. Both are really nice solid designs.

Sizing:
Oh my!!! Sizing....DO NOT even think the finished measurements printed on that tissue are accurate. Pretend they are not there. They are so far off I don't know why McCall's even bothered. I was left wondering if I was incompetent, crazy or both. How can something you are selling for 21.00 be. so. wrong. Here is my advice.

1. Use the sizing guide on the outer envelope.
2. Ignore the bust measurements, really.
3. Find your desired waist size, not your actual waist size.
4. Example, I have a 37 inch waist. I would like to lace down to 34. So I pick size 18. Now that being said size 18 will be approximately 32 inches laced fully closed. So in theory if I go with size 18 (32) that will give me a 2 inch gap laced down to my desired 34 inches. I don't want a fully closed corset, I like a gap. If you don't want any gap then just pick your desired waist size. But bear in mind if your corset stretches out it may become too big.
5. Make a muslin. Truly, you will be much happier if you do.
6. In the most simple terms, go down a couple sizes.

Now on to finished garment measurements. I made two different sizes/muslins, here are the approximate numbers:

Size 16 laced fully closed
waist 30 inches
hips 40

Size 12 laced fully closed
waist 27 inches
hips 38

Printed on the pattern tissue the 16 was supposed to be a 27 inch waist and the 12 was supposed to be 23 inches.

The other interesting thing is the gussets, side front, side and side back are all one size. No difference at all between sizes. I don't know anything about pattern grading so I can't say if this is a normal thing or not. But that is a pretty broad size range. The other corsets I have made all had each piece graded, no universal sized pieces. Gussets would be the only exception.

Changes I made:
I prefer to use bone casing tape instead of making my casings with the lining or seam allowances. My corset is not lined. Fabrics I used, red skull mesh, coutil and underlined it with twill. A really great book I cannot recommend enough is The Basics of Corset Building by Linda Sparks. It covers the construction methods for several different types of corsets.

Construction:
Fairly simple. I would not recommend this pattern for a beginner. My most favorite pattern for beginners is the Laughing Moon #113, under bust corsets. They have good sizing info and there are no sizing surprises.

Remaining crumbs:
Corset requires a 10 inch busk. If you lengthen or shorten it that size will change. The seam allowance for the body of the corset is 5/8 inch. For the top and bottom it is 1/4 inch. Since I didn't use a lining I bound off the bottom and top with bias tape. This corset really has a great shape. I don't know if I will make another. The sizing aspect was very frustrating. :-/