Thursday, October 8, 2015

The Librarian - Corset

Good heaven, gentle Readers, has it truly been so long since I last posted?  Alas, life has a way of continuing full speed ahead, dragging us behind in its wake.

When we last met, I told the story of love's labour lost, or rather that of labour that did not bear fruit.  This time I come to you with a story of triumph!

Behold, gentle Readers - The Corset!

A thing of beauty, is it not?



From the ruins of the last mockup, I gathered my tattered pride. Armed with my trusty tape measure, I used the pattern Truly Victorian TV 110 as a base, and custom drafted this one to my measurements.  

The fashion layer is a Dragonfly Poly-Brocade; the strength layer is cotton duck; the liner is quilt cotton.  There are a total of 14 straight steel bones and 10 spiral steel bones.  The top and bottom are bound with double fold bias tape, as I was afraid that the brocade would not be strong enough to make binding out of without lining it with cotton duck as well, and I didn't want the bulk.  The top binding has an added lace edge, which I have tacked to stand up rather than laying down.  

All in all, a success, though one that was quite delayed in coming.



Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Disgrace, Ruination, and Redemption

Dear readers,

I would like to tell you a story of horror and woe.  It started off innocently enough.  Our Intrepid Adventurer had undertook the next step in her adventure - that of creating a corset for her Victorian Inspired outfit.  It was with excitement and fair amount of nervousness that she started off.  At first, everything seemed to be going well.  She made a mockup of her corset.  It didn't fit well, but she had expected there to be some issues.  Undaunted, she returned to her pattern and readjusted.

The second mockup seemed to be a little better, but still not where it should have been.  The third mockup was actually created using canvas duck, which is a fairly decent strength fabric.  Still, the fit was off.  The heroine took a deep breath, or at least as deep a breath as one could when wearing a corset, and posted some photographs of herself online to a corset making community, where a number of people were generous enough to offer critiques and suggestions for her fit.

After taking their comment into consideration, she was ready.  She cut out the strength layer and flatlined it to the fashion layer.  She sewed and boned, flossed, and hand sewed 26 eyelets.  When the last one was complete, she slipped it on and attempted to lace it up.

The blasted thing was at least 6 inches too small (not including the expected 2-3 inch gap), and incredibly uncomfortable.

What was our heroine to do?  She decided, as any worthy crafts-person would be wont to do, to bundle the offending undergarment into a ball and through it in the deepest and darkest corner of her craft space until it had learned its lesson.  After mourning the time (68 friggen hours!) and money wasted, she finally gathered the tattered remnants of her pride and honor together, and salvaged what she could, throwing the rest of the rubbish away.

And that is how things stood until recently.  Over the cold winter, our plucky seamstress has tried to ignore the frustrations of unrequited love.  She has gone on to other projects, including making Christmas gifts and an outfit to wear to a wedding.  She has dabbled with other crafts, and purchased other patterns.  And yet she could not get the idea of a corset out of her head.

Finally, as the first hints of Spring wavered timorously under the wrath of Winter, she decided the time had come to reclaim her crafting honor.  It was time to try again.

Please stay tuned for the upcoming sequel:  Corset 2.0