Corsetry

Purple Satin Overbust!

Thu, 05/16/2013 - 18:04 — Maggie

Purple Satin Overbust Photo
My purple satin overbust is finished! (I think.)

It has 28 1/4" spiral steels, two of those extra thick flat steels that corsetmaking.com sells as 1/4" but are actually 5/16", and four regular 1/4" flat steels (on the sides of the lacing.)

The fashion fabric layer is an utterly infuriating silk/rayon slipper satin interfaced with fusible tricot, the strength layer is black English coutil, and the lining is that mysterious handkerchief maybe-linen with the bizarre description about being "100% handkerchief linen" that breathes like linen and is mistaken for linen but wears better than linen.

I originally intended just to do the lace embellishment at the top and bottom, but then a rogue bit of fusible web attached itself to the outside of the satin, and in trying to get it out, a light spot developed.. so it needed more lace to cover it up.

Purple Satin Overbust Back

Jet swarovski crystals in ss6 and ss8 sizes accent the black lace and crystal AB crystals accent the silver-edged lace.

I'm still not sure what to wear with it. I'll definitely have to make some kind of bolero, probably in either purple chiffon or silver lace.
Purple Satin Overbust Embellishment Front
Purple Satin Overbust Embellishment Front Bottom

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Aquamarine Corset

Thu, 03/07/2013 - 10:40 — Maggie

I finished my aquamarine corset!
Aquamarine Corset
The fashion fabric layer is aquamarine dupioni from Silk Baron interfaced with fusible tricot. Strength layer is one layer of black English coutil from King and Company, and it's lined with purple couture linen from FabricMart. I used the King and Company Celine underbust pattern. It's supported by 24 quarter-inch spiral steels, 4 regular 1/4" flat steels (sandwiching the grommet panels) and two of those extra-thick flat steels that corsetmaking.com sells as 1/4" but are actually 3/8". I put the extra-thick ones in the side-back seams to improve the back support. I boned all of the seams as usual, and used black tubular bone casings between seams for the additional bones.
Aquamarine Corset Front Embellishment Close-Up.
I embellished it with two different types of lace; a fuchsia stretch lace and a black lace netting "shadowing" the front lace embellishment. The fuchsia lace was a bad choice, it wanted to pull and snag and unravel at every chance. I ended up applying small bits of fusible web and liquid thread with the a flat hotfix tip to stabilize the lace. Next time I'm definitely going to be much more careful about selecting the lace. I like the visual effect of this lace, it was just really not well suited to being cut out and sewn to a corset.

I used black silk threads for the flossing, which was also unnecessarily difficult. I liked the look better than using topstitching thread, but I didn't have any black dupioni so I used threads from another black silk that wasn't as thick and required more threads. Next time I'll either make sure I have the right colors to use dupioni weft or I'll get some silk embroidery thread.

I accented the lace embellishment with hotfix swarvoski crystals. I used a few ss10 AB crystals on the protruding parts of the pink lace, but the majority of the of the crystals I used were the teeny tiny ss6 crystals. I used jet ones on the black shadowing lace lace and a few different colors from a "passion" pack (which contains shades of pink, red, and purple) scattered around the fuchsia lace.
Aquamarine Neck "Corset"

I had just enough of the aquamarine dupioni left to make a neck "corset"/posture collar thingy to match. It's kinda cute, but next time I make one of those things, it must have a zipper! I'm not entirely sure how I'll fit a zipper in because the back felt thick and awkward to work with as it was, but it's a pain to get on and off and it really needs a zipper in addition to the lacing.
Aquamarine Corset Finished

Despite my zillion complaints about my choices on this one, I'm actually very happy with the results. This is only the second corset I've made with coutil, and the last coutil corset (the tea-dyed one) didn't have a separate fashion fabric layer, so I learned a lot with this corset.

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Twisted Hunt 2012 @ Perception

Wed, 08/29/2012 - 09:38 — Maggie

Bloody Underbust for Twisted Hunt
The Twisted Hunt is almost here!

At *Perception* you'll be searching for a black damask blood-covered underbust corset with silver dart flossing and a dramatic tight-laced shape.

This is the most detailed rigged mesh corset on the grid and comes in 7 sizes for increased shape compatibility.

Start your search on September first!

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More Mesh Corsets!

Fri, 06/15/2012 - 18:13 — Maggie

*Perception* Underbust Corset -- Red and Gold Damask
I finished another set of textures for my underbust corset mesh. Damask!

So far they're in black, ivory, red/gold, black/silver, and purple/silver. There will be at least a couple more eventually; I'm still fiddling with the textures for a black/red and I'll definitely do silver-grey one like I did with the overbusts too. (And as usual, I'm still open to suggestions!)

Corsets and demos are available in-world at *Perception* and on the Marketplace.
*Perception* Underbust Corset -- Purple and Silver Damask
I'm kinda thinking about doing another version with less realistic seaming. The true-to-life seaming makes it easier to make them look real, but harder to do any of those nifty artsy corsets. I haven't quite figured out how to go about doing that without feeling like I'm sacrificing quality.

But, it's SL, right? If I can defy gravity by lifiting off and flying, why can't I defy the limitations of fabric grainlines? And I certainly don't have to worry about how I'd wiggle into a corset without a split front busk. Right-click and "wear" or right-click and "add." It's not like I actually have to physically put it on, or like the trappings that would let me get in and out of it in RL are even functional in SL. Some of them should look like I could but I think I'm limiting myself by feeling like I shouldn't deviate from reality. I'm pretty sure that SL is meant to have a healthy dose of fantasy too.
*Perception* Underbust Corsets -- Damask

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Tea-Dyed Coutil Corset -- Pictures on Me!

Tue, 06/12/2012 - 10:00 — Maggie

My parents visited last week, so I finally have photos of my tea-dyed coutil corset on me!

Tea-Dyed Coutil Corset Front Photo

The fit is really pretty good (certainly better than on my dress form!) but I am kinda wishing I'd cinched the waist a bit more. I didn't want it to be as dramatic as my denim corset, which had a pretty significant reduction, but I think I ended up giving it too little. I'm frustrated with the double-layer construction method; I think it makes me too cautious, since nothing can really be changed.

The binding isn't as smooth as I would have liked it to be, I'm not exactly sure what went wrong there. Binding seems to be too easily forgotten when researching corsetry techniques.
Tea-dyed Coutil Corset Back

There's some wrinkling in the back at the waist. I think this means that I gave that back panel a bit too much curve. It might have been a discrepancy in the inner back panel vs. the outer back panel, which I guess would have given more or less the same result-- fabric being pulled where it isn't supposed to be pulled.
Tea-dyed Coutil Corset

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Underbusts Now at Perception!

Sun, 06/10/2012 - 16:35 — Maggie

I've finally finished my underbust corsets!
*Perception* Underbust Corsets
Four underbust corsets are now available in-world at *Perception* and on the Marketplace.
They come in black, red, green and purple coutil. I'll be doing more colors and fabrics soon. (And as always suggestions and requests are welcome!) They come with two alpha layer options currently; I'll add more if there are shapes I haven't accounted for with them.
*Perception* Mesh Corsetry
*Perception* Purple Underbust Corset

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Tea-dyed Coutil Corset! Finally!

Mon, 05/07/2012 - 17:26 — Maggie

Tea-dyed Coutil CorsetAfter much procrastinating, I've finally done an actual coutil corset! I tea-dyed the coutil because, um, it was white and my iron spit on it and left a stain. So dyeing it seemed logical, and white isn't so practical anyways. I'd originally figured on using a fashion fabric over it, but for my first coutil corset, I thought maybe it would be nice to just use the coutil.

It's a two-layer corset with sandwiched boning channels. It seems like a logical construction method, but I'm getting pretty frustrated with it. It's just so impossible to change anything once you've done much of anything at all. I was dumb enough to clip the seam allowances together instead of one side and then the other side in a different spot, which created wrinkle-looking things where there's less thickness because of the clipped seam allowances.. and then by the time I noticed it, there was really nothing I could do about it.
I'm not really liking the inside. I just couldn't really come up with any way to get the inside to look clean; the back of the flossing is just too visible. The hand embroidery isn't quite as bad but the back of the flossing just looks bad.
For my next corset I'm going to use one strength layer and just add boning channels wherever I need to. A single layer corset with a lining just looks so much nicer from the inside.
I'm wishy-washy about the shaping on the bottom edge, too. I think it turned out too not-one-thing-or-another. Not straight, but not shaped enough to look.. well, shaped.

I really am pretty happy with the corset overall! I think it looks decent and I'm excited to have completed my first coutil corset. There's just a lot that I can point to and say "next time, I'm not doing that." And assuming I listen to myself, that's good, I think.

Tea-dyed Coutil Corset Side Back

I used a total of 32 steel bones. Twenty-four 1/4" spiral steels, four 1/2" spirals, two 1/4" spring steel bones and two extra thick spring steels. The extra-thick ones are sold as 1/4" but they're actually 3/8" wide. The extra thick ones are on the back edge and the regular spring steels are on the other side of the grommets.

I'll probably change the lacing-- either dye it purple or use more of that ribbon that I used for my denim corset.

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Perception Coutil Corsets

Thu, 04/05/2012 - 12:20 — Maggie

Yes I know, I've been awful about blogging lately. But better late than never, right?
I put out a new set of mesh corsets in five colors of coutil.
The green one has extra floral flossing detail, and all but the tea-dyed one have rhinestone embellishments.

They're in the six sizes I've been using; the five standard sizes plus the M+ size for very curvy avatars. They also come with an adjustable unrigged lace piece and lace trim clothing layer.
Corsets and demos are available in-world at *Perception* and on the Marketplace.

The tea-dyed one is actually meant to be a virtual mockup; I've got some coutil that I tea-dyed after (sob) my iron spit on it. I'm still nervous about cutting into coutil, though. I also haven't decided exactly how I feel about the tea dyed coutil as both strength layer and fashion fabric. It's certainly practical-- a good color to wear as an undergarment, not quite as prone to getting dirty as white, cooler than if it had more layers, easier to clean than if it were flatlined to a silk fashion fabric layer. But I want and need the flatlining practice, and tea-dyed coutil just isn't as pretty as those dupionis I got from the Silk Baron scrap sale that have been waiting to become a fashion fabric layer of a corset. So I keep fiddling with the pattern more, and procrastinating.

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Eyelets vs. Grommets

Thu, 04/21/2011 - 15:51 — Maggie

Eyelets and Grommets
The ones on the top were sold as eyelets, the ones on the bottom were sold as grommets.
A major difference when buying eyelets vs. grommets is that eyelet sizes are described just by fractions of an inch, as opposed to the grommets which usually do list the size in fractions, but also list the standard sizing. When you look at the list of the sheet metal grommets and plain washers at GrommetMart, the primary listing is the 00 through 6 size, with the size in fractions of an inch in parenthesis.
In the row of eyelets here, the first is a 1/4" Dritz eyelet from CleanerSupply, the second (the one with only one piece) is the standard 1/8" eyelet you get at any craft store and can get in all different colors, and the last one is 3/16" two-piece Dritz eyelet that I think I got at Michael's Arts and Crafts. The inner circumference of those last two seems almost the same to me, although the outer circumference on the two-part 3/16" eyelets is definitely larger. The ones from Michael's A&C have different packaging and say "The Sewing Basket," but they're still made by Dritz. I can't find them on their website; there's a Michael's next to the Lowe's around here.
The bottom row are the grommets. I don't have the tools for the first two. The first one is a 3/8" grommet from Cleaner Supply (they don't have grommets in any other size and I was having trouble picturing just how big they'd be.) The second is a size 00 grommet from corsetmaking.com and the third a size 0 from Amazon

Dfr still says that the difference is whether they're one or two piece, but if the whole row on the top is eyelets, the pieces can't be the distinguishing factor, right?
The tools are different. Grommeting tools are usually pretty expensive. The size 0 ones I got on Amazon were less than $10, but that's still more than eyelet tools usually are. The grommeting tools are bigger, and heavy. The ones for the eyelets are light and flimsy-feeling.

ETA: Okay, so it wasn't dfr. Val is the one who said the difference was 1 vs. 2 pieces.

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Boning Types

Tue, 04/19/2011 - 13:03 — Maggie

I've been meaning to get up pictures and an explanation of different boning types ever since I first got the spiral steel a couple weeks ago. I'm definitely liking the spiral steel, particularly for the boning channels at my sides. I haven't used any curved boning channels, so the side-to-side flexibility hasn't been too much of an issue, but with blush dupioni corset, both the duct strapping and the flat spring steel bones at the sides got permanent kinks in them after a bit of wearing. (I can iron them flat again, but it's preferable that they not to that to begin with. I'm also not sure how the bending and unbending will affect the life of the bones.) I used the regular (thinner) flat steel on either side of the grommets, and a thicker white steel bone the next seam over. I might have used the thicker ones for the sides of the boning channels, but I didn't have many of the thicker ones. The lighter weight bones do seem a bit too thin for stabilizing the lacing, but so far it hasn't caused any problems; we'll see if that changes with extensive wear. I didn't use any duct strapping in my denim corset. The duct strapping isn't bad, but is definitely softer and more flexible than steel or cable ties, and more reactive to body heat. It's significantly thinner than the cable ties, though, and also quite easy to sew through. I haven't actually used the plastic meant-to-be-boning boning at all. I got way back, before I did the duct strapping thing.
My preference for corsets is definitely a combination of flat and spiral steel. For other boned bodicies or anything else that needed a bit of extra structure, duct strapping is excellent, though. While it seems too flimsy for corsets, it's easy to cut, doesn't upset my machine to sew through it, and isn't too thick; it's actually very versatile.
Boning Types: Boning types in my possession; the four to the left are plastic, and the four to the right are steel.
From left to right:
--a heavy duty cable tie (duct tie? the 15" 120lb kind.) (from the hardware store)
--perforated duct strapping (it only comes with the little holes, I use a revolving hole punch to cut them bigger so that I can use the duct strapping to stabilize eyelet) (from the hardware store)
--duct strapping, cut lengthwise
--plastic boning (I think it was from Joann)
--1/4-inch spiral steel from corsetmaking.com
--1/4-inch white steel boning from corsetmaking.com
--"extra-thick" 1/4-inch white steel boning from corsetmaking.com (no, your eyes aren't deceiving you, it really is wider than the other1/4 inch stuff, my ruler says 5/16ths of an inch) and
--1/2-inch white steel boning from voguefabricstore.com Boning Types -- Thickness: Left to right, that's the plastic duct strapping, plastic boning from Joann, extra-thick "1/4inch" (actually 5/16ths of an inch) wide white steel boning from corsetmaking.com, a cable tie, regular 1/4" white steel boning (which actually is 1/4 inch wide) from corsetmaking.com, and spiral steel boning from corsetmaking.com. Unless you count the thickness of the casing of the plastic stuff from Joann, the cable tie is definitely the thickest. The extra-thick spring steel isn't too far behind, but is much, much sturdier. The spring steel is actually thinner than it looks in this picture. I had trouble getting a good side-view photo.

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