Alabama Chanin Corset top - progress!

Hi there!  I didn't start this blog early enough - should have begun when I started attempting to generate Alabama Chanin-style garments a couple months ago.  But, later is better than never!

I've only purchased the most recent book, Alabama Studio Sewing Patterns.  I was inspired by some work at https://corecouture.wordpress.com/ and then have since discovered the massive Pinterest galleries and other blogs devoted to Alabama Chanin studio work.

First - some background.  I sew.  A lot.  Smocked garments for my kids, jeans for myself, underwear, etc.  We are now in the UK for 7 months and I brought about 50% homemade clothes (okay, they haven't been worn 50% of the time, though!).  I thought I'd spend my time here doing other things, less crafting.  So, no sewing machine.  But I realized this was a mistake even before we got here, and bought the AC book over Christmas to take with me.

AC garments use thick cotton jersey, often in a double layer.  It's hard to find that in stores - they provide a nice stock online, but it's a bit expensive for a beginner to the field who wasn't sure she'd like actually wearing the garments, and the international shipping puts it far out of reach.  So, I started out with what she encouraged, using thrifted t-shirts.  However, I quickly exhausted what I could find (more on the kids clothes I made, later), and looked elsewhere.  It turned out that the easiest (for now) way to get reasonably thick cotton jersey was to buy XXXX-large men's t-shirts on Amazon!  Doesn't quite fit with the "re-use, sustainability" theme, but it at least has gotten me started.

The corset top is the 3rd garment I started, but will be the 4th completed, due to a dark green simple swing top that jumped in the queue.

For mine, I used 2 men's t-shirts in size medium and had some left, in what was supposed to be a mustard yellow.  It was rather bright, so I washed them all in tea and coffee first.

I began by cutting out and coarsely stitching one layer into a muslin for fitting.  Can't do it with pins, the corset top is tight enough that that would be miserable!  This was useful, I found that the armhole and upper back needed a bit of adjustment and that the neckline was at least 2 inches lower than I wanted (other bloggers noted this as well).  I also drew in my leaves design (just on the back) by hand, so that the motifs would cross the seams appropriately. I don't really like the standard Alabama Chanin thing where the motifs are completely random and hit the seams all over the place.

However, since I'd already cut one layer, I needed to come up with a solution for adding some height to the middle piece.  I tried making it a design feature - overlapping a piece by quite a bit and doing some decorative stitches.  Then I took everything apart and started reassembling as double layers.

 Actually, I did embroider the back pieces before assembly where the motifs crossed seam boundaries.   I left the rest until after assembly, then did the embroidery and cutting.  I used a back stitch around the motifs and stem stitch for my stems.  Should have done back stitch for all.  Running stitch for the seams with extra-strong thread.

Done with embroidery, and on to topstitching seams (also with the extra-strong thread, since I am almost out of embroidery floss!):

I can tell I'm going to need to do something about the curling on the bottom.  That will annoy me.