More Bodice Fun!

Here's the next part for the upper portion of the dress.  I've been referring to it as a 'corselette' for lack of a better term.
Since I'm being a bit stingy with the green fabric (I bought what was left of the bolt, but it was on sale and apparently not being stocked anymore), I wanted to make sure I had all the important parts cut out with no mistakes.  Thus, the toile was extremely important!

I used parts of the corset/bodice pattern I had made earlier to draft out the original shapes, drawing directly on the muslin.

It took some adjusting and a bit of finesse to get the geometry right.  I didn't want any strange puckers and needed to leave plenty of room for a placket to cover the closure.  The nice thing about the muslin is that I can just write directly on it with pencil so I remember what's what and what I was thinking once I take it off Dress Form Dorcas.

Top:  First toile, then second toile to check adjustments and corrections, followed by final corselette.  The length expanded once I added in an additional section for a placket.  I also left the center pieces extra long so I had room to adjust once it was all constructed--a very good decision!

The two layers together.  There will be lace covering the bottom layer, which I am waiting to add until after I complete the train and lace swag for the skirt.  

All the seams have been reinforced with 1/4 inch spiral steel boning.  For each bone, a channel was sewn to the back side so the top-stitching won't be visible on the finished side.  Once the two sides were laid back together, they were quite nicely aligned and it didn't seem necessary to attempt making any attachments between the front and back layers other than the top-stitching along the top and the final binding on the bottom.  We'll see if that comes back to bite me.