How to sew a corset

Tatiana Kozorovitsky runs online haute couture classes at corsetacademy.net. Her site is a treasure trove of wedding dress tutorials and techniques, and she’s passionate about dress and corset making, telling us how corsets can subtly reshape the body for a flattering silhouette.

In this post, Tatiana shares a free taster corset-making workshop and corset sewing pattern to teach you how to make your own transparent corset, step by step. Scroll down for the full tutorial…

Let’s get started!

We’ve split this workshop into sections to help you work through each one in turn. Each section is a PDF download so you can sew along on screen or print it out to have to hand on your sewing table…

Free corset sewing pattern downloads

Download the free corset sewing pattern from Corset Academy here. These are PDF files but due to their size, we’ve split them into four smaller downloads for you. To use this sewing pattern, download all 4 and then print them out. You’ll find a pattern assembly guide to show you what goes where in part 4.

Corset pattern part 1

Corset pattern part 2

Corset pattern part 3

Corset pattern part 4

Ready to sew? Let’s go!

As with the pattern PDFs, making a corset does involve quite a few different steps, so we’ve divided this free workshop into stages to help you work through one at a time. While Tatiana has created this for you to sew in 3 hours, this assumes you’re quite speedy with your machine. You may find it takes you a few evenings or a weekend to finish your corset, but the results will be worth the wait!

Part 1: Get Started: printing the free pattern and which materials you will need

Part 2: Pattern prep: cutting and preparing your fabric

Part 3: Start sewing: start joining your pieces

Part 4: Take shape: how to create the skeleton of your corset

Part 5: Bones: inserting the bones and adding lace

Part 6: Nearly there: Watch the main section come together

Part 7: Ta da! Now add the cups to finish

Roisin McKenna

Simply Sewing magazine’s former Technical Editor Roisin loves every part of the dressmaking process, from sketching to sewing the final design, and enjoys working with luxury fabrics such as silk and chiffon. She’s a sewing pattern pro with a skill for adjusting and hacking patterns to fit and for editing dressmaking instructions to make them accessible to sewists of all abilities. Before she came to Simply Sewing, the tea-drinking fabric-lover ran her own handmade Lingerie Etsy shop. She drinks a lot of tea and shares a mix of dressmaking projects and fashion history on her Instagram @roisin_handmade.

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