Corset Week, Part Two

Spiral steel boning (left) and flat steel boning (right)

Readers! As always, your comments delight, impress, and educate me. Thank you for your words of wisdom on yesterday's corset post. As I continue my journey with Laughing Moon #113 Underbust pattern, here are some things I've decided upon:

• Thanks to your feedback, I have opted to take a bit more room out of the pattern to account for the corset's reduction when laced up. I was originally going for a two-inch gap at the back, but now I'm looking at 3".
• I also reshaped some of the seams, giving them a more nipped-in waist. As several of you noted, this pattern seems a bit tubular rather than hourglass. And we don't want that, now do we?! 
• Several of you warned about messing with taking the pattern in at the tummy area. I confess that I still did it, just a teeeeny bit (like a scant 1/4" total). I've noticed that when the tummy is loose in shapewear, I tend to compensate by sticking my belly out (attractive, I know), and it gives me a lower backache. We'll see how this goes.
• After poking around a bit on the internet, I discovered that it is essential practice to use flat steel bones in the front and back of the corset, and spiral bones on the other seams. Flat steel bones (the white ones above) are very strong and move back and forth but not side to side. Spiral steel bones move in all directions, but they don't give quite the support that is needed at the straight front and back seams, and cause rippling at center front and back. So I stopped by Steinlauf and Stoller in NYC yesterday between classes and picked up some flat steel bones. (FYI, I went to Pacific Trim first. The last time I was there, I noticed that they had added lots of corsetry supplies, but they do not have flat steel bones. So I'll be going straight to Steinlauf and Stoller next time.)
• Helpful lacing hints! Many commenters recommended lacing in a "bunny ears" fashion (rather than ending at the bottom, as the pattern instructs), with two long loops at the waist. Apparently doing this is a lot easier than I would have guessed; see very helpful PDF instructions here.

Last but not least, here are a few fun corset resources on the web:

•  The Merry Corsetier is a very lively and active Live Journal corsetry group.
• Check out Bridges on the Body, a fantastic corsetry blog by talented reader and commenter Jo. 
• Foundations Revealed is an amazing resource of articles on corsets, bras, and other foundation garments. Most of the site is member-only, but membership is reasonably priced and an excellent value for the information.
• Julia of Sew Curvy just released an ebook! It looks fantastic.

See you back here tomorrow for Part Three!