Alterations Day

Monday was a logistical nightmare.

But before we get to that, some other things happened that were ok...

I am officially behind schedule as I had to spend two days last week writing the rest of my dissertation in time for hand in, then another day recovering. If we recap, by the end of last week, I was supposed to have the finalised pattern ready for cutting out, and the embroidery ready to go. But I should be able to catch up hopefully.

Remember this? Yeah, me neither.

I did manage to make a sample of the embroidery on the silk taffeta over the weekend, where I discovered that embroidering on this taffeta is not the nicest experience. It looks pretty good though! The perle cotton is so lovely to use and to look at! Shiny wondrous stuff.

I don't like the bottom right crocus though. Gross.

First off the bat, I altered my master pattern with the changes from the fitting.

Hips

I straightened out panels 1 and 3 to reduce the excess at the belly. On panel 5, I added 6.25cm, with the most towards the back. I also added 1cm to panel 7.

Underbust

I took 0.5cm off panel 1, and 1.3cm off panel 3, with the majority towards the back.

Bust

At the bust, I took 1.5cm out of the back side of panel 3.

Waist

I'm taking 2" overall off the waist, distributed evenly across panels 1, 3, 5, and 7. This means 1/4" from each one.

Design lines

The design line is raised at the top, and the bottom design line is also raised up and shaped more.



Then I traced it out, and started marking up and cutting the coutil. Because it's black, I couldn't use my trusty erasible pens, and had to return to tailors chalk. I hate it. It's so hard to be accurate with, no matter how hard you try or how much you sharpen it. I would rather stab myself in the eye than use it again. But I managed to get it done, and all cut out.

Then things get complicated. I need to embroider the top layer before I cut it or put it together, or it won't fit in the hoop, and my satin stitch will be gross and distorted.

So remember when I designed my embroidery on flat, gridded paper? Well somehow, I managed to completely forget that the seams it will go over will be curved. And not just a little bit curved, super curved. Which means I need to do some serious redesigning, avoiding leaves or flowers from crossing between panels.

This means making up the bust area in calico/spare fabric, padding it out on a mannequin, and drawing the design onto the mock up. After this, I will need to scan in the drawn on pattern pieces, neaten up the design, then print it out. Finally I will be able to trace it onto the taffeta, and actually start embroidering. Phew!

Wish me luck...

First Fitting

I overslept by like three hours, but still managed to get my fitting done today. The lovely thing about fitting on yourself is you can feel where it's right and where it isn't.

Before any changes were made...

Lovely armpit shot

Probably should have used a darker background

Oh well

Positives first - I love this pattern so hard. It is my new number one. (Cue Atomic Kittens sing along). There isn't that much to change really, nothing too complicated.

However, you know how I said the hip line was wonky when I was putting it together? Well it's definitely off. There was definitely not enough room for my bootay, so the bottom needed to be left open.

The waist could definitely have been tighter - at present it is a gentle hug and I want something stronger! 

The underbust was too loose, so the bust needs moving up a little - as I expected from reading Cathy Hay's article. 

For the mock up, I just made quick boning channels from the seam allowance, so the boning placement will change, but observing the back of the corset shows some serious wrinkleage at the back waist. There will need to be more support there for the fabric.

Out come the pins! 

To help my poor squished butt, the panel was slashed and more calico put under to figure out how much space I needed. This was spread evenly between both sides of the corset and gives it a much curvier shape.

I will take an inch off the waist, spread through all the curved seams of the pattern.

To deal with the boob issues, I took out the bones over the breasts to make it easier to in. A little will be taken from the side of panel 3 closest to panel 4, and a portion from next to panel 2. The curve to cup the top of my breast will be more significant. After these alterations were pinned, it significantly brought down the top design line, so I will move that up to the edge of the seam allowance (1"/2.5cm), and gently slope down to the original design line at panel 4.

After the room was given to my hind-quarters, the laces were tightened at the back. The room my butt needed seems to have been at the front of the corset, so I will need to take in panels 1 and 3 at the hip to take care of that overhang. I might actually sneak some from the front of 5 too if it works.

Not too bad, huh! Here are the final pictures:

Did someone say armpit?

Look at those curves, oh yeah

Dang that overhang

Sadly, I only got about 330ish words and some research done last night due to an existential crises. This means no corsetry till Friday afternoon - unless I get my dissertation finished early by some magical magic. Of the magical kind. Only 3,385 words to go...

Mock Up Making

Today was pretty great, to be honest. The mock up is ready for fitting tomorrow morning (minus boning, which I am getting just before it).

I was too sleepy to take a good picture. Praise me anyway.

The pattern translated pretty well to sewing, the curvy seams into the straight seams were a bit of a fiddle but nothing I couldn't handle.

However, there is a weirdness in the bottom. I think when I plotted the hip line I must have fudged it a bit, because the bust, under bust and waist lines matched pretty much perfectly but the hip lines didn't. Also, I plotted the bottom design line wonky as heck so it needed a little smoothing out once it was all put together.

I used heavy weight calico, and dang did it stink when I was ironing it. Super gross. I've just about recovered from it now.

The eyelets I had lying about for the back were too small for the machine, so they are a bit cracked but #yolo it's only a mock up. I'm thinking a lovely black coated busk and eyelets for the final one! I'll make sure I don't get the wrong size this time.

I smushed it onto me without the boning because I couldn't contain my excitement, and dang is this pattern lovely. The shape is to die for. I am ridiculously proud of it so far. Sadly, it is almost definitely too big, I think I'll need to take it in 2" overall - only tomorrow will tell. It seemed like it was too roomy everywhere, so fingers crossed it will be a super simple alteration and I can finalise the pattern tomorrow, which would mean that I would actually be.......... ahead of schedule?? (I know, crazy)

On a less positive note, I only wrote about 700 words for my dissertation yesterday, meaning I have to write 1,250 tonight to make sure it's ready for Friday. I've come up with another point to add to it, which gives me the excuse to write about Obama quilts. Yes, I said Obama quilts. It seems that within the online craft community, there is a niche for quilting Obama's face - so much so that there is a whole book about it.

I kinda want one now...

Ready? Set? Cry.

So, it's time to start this.

I have three weeks from today to make my entry for Foundations Revealed's yearly contest, with some vague ideas to boot.

I'm going with the Symington Pattern Ref #2370,  but to make things a bit different, I will be using embroidery to help "celebrate the curves" as they put it!

Design is not my strong suit, but I think I have cobbled together something that is pretty darn acceptable considering! (Please excuse the *ahem* interesting Photoshop skills. I nabbed the photo from Cathy Hay's tutorial on drafting this corset who nabbed it from Jennifer Garside's fabulous post about the pattern.)

From this morning, I was looking at a navy blue silk taffeta outer layer, with a coutil strength layer (maybe even a lining? Who knows how wild I'll go!). There will be external bone channels and cotton perle #12 embroidery so it has a tasty sheen. The thinking behind this is that it's an interesting alternative to the classic lace 'V' you see on modern corsets, and will help me practice and refine my embroidery further. I'm sticking with the front busk closure, but eliminating the straps. I was thinking of using some of my favourite British wild flowers, like wood anemones, crocuses and bluebells. The bias for the edges will be made from the taffeta, as well as the bone casings.

Last term at university, I made a replica of an 1810 dinner dress with (ridiculously) elaborate embroidery, both in scale and design. I soon discovered how important it is to pay attention to how much time embroidery really takes. Before last term, I had only ever made leisurely embroideries for myself, and therefore was a little surprised by how long it actually takes. In my defence, a lot of jam went down that term. I am not allowing any distractions this term or I will go full on homicidal. Can you sense the determination?

Some of my embroidery from last term using Au Ver a Soie silks

To combat my, frankly, awful time management skills, I have written myself a handy plan! A schedule to keep me on top of where I should be at all times.

If you look carefully, you should see that I am already technically behind schedule

Today, I began drafting the pattern up to size. The printer in the library was not in a great way, so I had to work from the A3 copy I printed off, with hideous amounts of maths. Safe to say my brain is now mangled.

Why, maths? Why?

  So after like, three whole hours, my pattern is ready for the first mock up. I am pretty sure some of my panels are not quite the right shape I want, but I'm expecting to do at least two mock ups so I'm not too disappointed.

Though this pattern was intended for cording, I made 1810 stays last term and my hands barely survived all the cording. Not sure they've even forgiven me yet. So I'll be using 5mm spiral steels, mostly in pairs, instead, and some 7mm spring steel supporting the back. I'm hoping to bend the back spirals to encourage the delicious prominent booty of the 1890s, but we'll see how many personal disasters destroy my productivity before I get my hopes too high.

While I should have been listening to the Student Union's presentation telling us about a survey we will be doing about the university ~ e x p e r i e n c e ~ , I came up with a design for the embroidery at the front. I thought it would be average at best, but I actually think it turned out pretty great, so I'm sticking with it (with a few changes).

~ f a n c y ~

Going a bit subtler than my original plans, it's just wood anemones, crocus flowers and a couple of forget me nots. Though I am pleased with it, the middle crocuses are a bit icky and basic, so I will do some fiddling with them before I start embroidering.

I'm planning to embroider all the pattern on the silk taffeta before cutting out and putting it together (why do I do this to myself?) with the coutil. This is to hopefully not upset my hands as much as I did last term, but it does mean I will have a very intense few days of hardcore embroidering.

With a cheeky look at my university's James Hare catalogue, I picked out a delicious silk taffeta. I had some trouble picking between Marine and Navy, but I pulled through somehow (ha). Safe to say, I successfully spent £69.30 within about two minutes (I'm crying inside).

Now, it's time to order the boning, eyelets, and laces from Vena Cava, and some pretty embroidery threads from Sew and Sew. By the by, if you are looking for a really good selection of embroidery threads and supplies, I 10/10 recommend Sew and Sew as they are super reasonably priced and deliver super quickly. Postage is £1. As in, genuinely, only 100 sweet pennies. And after all that, I just need to write 1,000 words of my dissertation. Just one thousand words. No biggie (send help).

 Tomorrow, I will be putting together my first muslin, ready for fitting on Wednesday. Fingers crossed nothing goes tragically wrong.