Doin' It Wrong

So, the point of a mockup is to make mistakes. Okay, yeah, I got that. The Barono fabric was a mistake, albeit a calculated one. Racing through all the boning channels? Also a mistake. About half of them were too narrow for my 1/4" reed, so I spent a lot of time trimming bits down and now as ever my floor is covered with cuttings. And yes, I am frustrated enough with this corset that I don't think I'm going to finish it.
HOWEVER.

In the ugliness, there is some epiphany.  You see, I've always hated this style of corset, because I always get huge ugly bias-pulls in between the boned sections.

Like that trench that runs up over my hip.  Yeah, like that.

 And then it hit me. They're pulling on the bias, because... they're on the bias.  You see, the first 18th century corset I ever made was from a pattern so sparse and so low on instructions that even now I look at it and wonder how I ended up with something so good.  The second was, as I mentioned, another mockup, and thus I'd blamed the fabric.

But it turns out, I've been cutting the panels on the wrong grain tilt all this time, and would never have known except that there's been another book out recently which actually, wonder of wonders, MARKS THE GRAIN LINES. When I did the first one, all I had was the sparse diagrams in Corsets and Crinolines to go on. And while there are pattern pieces in those line drawings, it's unclear where the grain lines are. So really, this is new information to me - the CF is not on the straight of grain, and the grain is ALSO not supposed to go vertically from hip to armpit as in my Victorian bodices.

Nope, the grain is supposed to match the main line of boning - so the angle of navel-to-nipple for the wide front panel, and from navel to armpit on the super-tilted side panel.

Wellp.

(For those of you at home wondering, this is what I imagine any time I hear or say "wellp!")

Other than the major fail of lack of infoz, I feel like the thing fits fairly well.
It's a little big. and I think it needs to come in at the side and side front a bit - we're talking like half an inch from the bottom of the center point-armhole seam, and maybe a bit more tuck at the waist. Oh, and I'll probably narrow the back panels, since I had it laced 100% completely closed in this picture, and wasn't feeling any real "squish":

(Also, this fabric totally matches my bathroom tile. <3 )

Soooo... Onward! The next version will have slight pattern alterations, and be made of much more biddable material. Also, cut on the correct grain. And with more even boning channels.