2 1/2 inches...

Now I have found the tape measure.

Now I don't dare to take my measures. I'm fat. I won't be near 22 inches around my waist. I will be more like twice that... Which means that I kind of need to double that pattern...

But - I have a husband, and it needs to be done, so... My sweet, darling husband took the measurements. He's really doing more than duty calls - but he just shrugs and says "that's part of paying the 18 cows". He married a woman who sews. 

18 cows... Ok. There was a village, full of beautiful women, and there was a poor man with a daughter in the village. The girl walked around hunched, afraid and ashamed, because she was poor. They had nothing.
One day a young, rich man comes to the village, in search of a wife. All the other girls were trying to charm him, but he didn't seem to even see them. He saw the poor girl. He said he wanted to marry her. 
Year later the girl came back to her home village to greet her father, and when the villagers saw the girl, they didn't recognize her. She walked with pride and joy, carrying her head up high with a radiant smile. She was like a queen.
What had happened?
The rich man had not paid the usual 5 cows, or 9 which was paid for a rich man's daughter. No. He paid 18 cows for his wife.
Why?
To get a wife worth 18 cows, you pay 18 cows...

And it's 44 inches.
Dang, I'm fat. :-(

Well... the official measurements - taken exactly against the given orders, that is, in the evening, straight after dinner.
waist 44 inches
hips 49-49.5 inches
So - let's remove three inches from the waist and get 41. That divided in two is 20.5, which is exactly twice the 10 1/4 of the CC pattern.
so that divided with 4 is 2 9/16
That doesn't look TOO bad. Actually.
*sigh*

"that's roughly 3/8 per pattern piece..." Compare that to 2 and half inches.
I'm fat. :-(

Bah. Comparison is the kill of joy. Back to work.

I really like that ribbon embellishment on top of this corset from 1909

Now I have done it.
I have added 2 1/2 inches to every piece of the pattern, and boy, was it rough! Emotionally it was almost too much to bear.
I kept thinking about how fat I am, I'm fat, fat, fatty fat.

Then I thought that "I just need to do this job. Add 2 1/2 inches to each pattern piece, nothing else. Don't think what it means. Just do it. It's easy. It's not tough. It's not hard. It's easy. Just add 2 1/2 inches to each piece. Only six pieces... Easy peasy."

And then "fat, fat, fat..."


And then I thought about Mae West.

And I thought about words like rubenesque, voluptuous, baroque, opulent... I love stuff like that.

Mae West was magnificent. She wasn't a skinny bitch. I can't think of one skinny bitch who's magnificent. You have to be big to be magnificent. Like Mae West and Miss Piggy. Magnificent.

I'm magnificent. And voluptuous, baroque, opulent and rubenesque. I'm not fat. I'm magnificent.

Any way, now it's done.
It's day 7 of the Corset Project, and I have slashed and spread and drafted and the pattern should be ok for the next phase.
I need to check the hips, put notches in pattern, add length and mark the bones in the pattern.