The start of something big

Edit from the future:  This was the start of Sew Curvy (December'14)

I have much to blog about, but Mr Site is beating the soles of my feet with twigs!

I'll be back in August, hopefully with an announcement and a giveaway!

In the meantime, here's a link to all my sewing posts for your entertainment.
(click on the picture below)

TTFN!

How to bend your boning!

Anybody would think I hadn't been doing any sewing around here - but I have I promise! Nearly all my sewing time has been taken up with Miss L's Dress the last few throes of which have had me nearly weeping over my sewing machine. Note to self: NEVER sew with that kind of silk again. It's like sewing fresh bubblegum. Boo hoo. It's the hem that's had me in hysterics. I've conquered the outer, but now have to tackle the lining hem. I've been putting it off but I know I have to face up to it soon.

Another problem was the boning. It's one thing to shove flexible metal bones into a firm structured and strong garment like a corset which is built for boning, but quite another to sew round the curves of bubblegum. Suffice to say, that if only i'd know how to do this before today:


It's a peice of riglene boning, heated and shaped. I had no idea! I know you won't want to see it in situ, but this is a perfect replica of one of my own curves!! All you do is iron the boning (use paper on top to protect the iron) then quickly shape while it's warm. Keep doing this until you get the required shape. Brilliant!


The red sash which goes with the dress has had me develop a nasty case of obsessive compulsive disorder. I'm sure i've got the cleanest hands in the village, and I"m sure there are still dirty marks on it! However, the colour is such a perfect red and it's dupion silk, much easier to sew that bubblegum silk. I'm very pleased with how it's turned out - despite the dirty marks. (Only joking Miss L!!)...

Many things in The Marmalade House have been causing consternation this week.

Poor old Eggy and Peggy have a nasty case of Red Mite. I've renamed them Pick and Peck as that's all they seem to do at the moment. This weekend, it will be on with the protective chemical suits and in with the disenfectant. I've been spraying them liberally (as per the instructions) and they seem to have perked up a bit. If you've never heard of red mite, read Jane's
cautionary talehorror story here.

It seems that those red mites aren't the only bugs in my garden ... Look what i've discovered in the greenhouse!!


Apologies for the wobbly picture - there was a spider web in my hair! eeek! ... These are EGGS. Cabbage Whites have discovered my secret stash of sprouting brassicas. So after further examination I'm going to have to seek out and destroy all of them before they hatch. This happened to me unawares last year. One day I had cabbage seedlings, the next day I had cabbage seedling stalks.

Have you heard the wasps scratching your fence yet? Listen. They are building their nests. They have been scratch scratch scratching my shed. They eat wood you see. Then they regurgitate it, and make it into paper. Nobody has yet discovered how they do it. They have signalled to me that it's time to keep my sewing room doors firmly SHUT. Humph.

I have a new best friend who's been taking up the rest of my time.

What's fearsome and loathsome about Mr Site I hear you say? Nothing! Nothing at all. I've been having lots of fun with him and I'm VERY impressed with the package - if you buy it from Amazon there's £40 off the Pro version which has search engine optimising tools and a super fandabidozee shopping cart system. Really good value for money and i've heard that he's putting lots of smaller web builders right out of business because what Mr Site does for £99, they do for hundreds ... and hundreds. Trouble is, I now have a rather larger shopping list to contemplate. Mr Site told me so. Jimmy might never get to university at this rate, but on the other hand, the risk might pay off and we'll be able not only to send him to college, but to buy him a round-the-world ticket too. Fingers crossed eh?

Strapless dress with boning

I am immensley pleased , I don't mind telling you, and even if I do say so myself ...  I have nearly completed the dress for Miss L.  It's ready for her fitting tomorrow which is making me nervous, but since it will be the third fitting - the first two with toile's, then I think it might be ok.  

It's taken me the best part of a week to cut this out, and sew it together, not least because the spotty fabric has driven me literally dotty, it's so fine and flimsy.  I had to lay it over sheets of paper, line it up exactly - no mean feat I can tell you, then lay the pattern over it, and cut.  A nerve racking experience if ever there was one, because this is ALL the fabric there is - no spare parts and as it is 100% pure silk with quite alot of 'stretch' - almost chiffony in texture, well you can guess!!  I had a small moment of near heart failure yesterday when one of the pins got stuck under my presser foot as I was sewing around the curve of the left boob which made a very wobbly line - talk about the most conspicuous place this could happen, and so a very very delicate operation commenced to unpick the extra tight stitches (due to aforementioned jam) and restore the boob to smoothness.  Luckily it worked out fine with no lasting damage, but it could have been a whole different story! 

The reason I am especially pleased is because I drafted and cut this pattern myself.  If somebody had told me even last year, that I would be able to do this, I would have thought them quite dotty!

How to make fabric flowers

edit: This post has been hit over 1,000 times. If you use this tutorial and post the results on your blog, please do me the courtesy of posting a link back here. Thankyou!

How much fun can a girl have with a candle and some silky fabric I ask you?

I was inspired by the beautiful poppies and roses in my garden - they are my favourites, red ofcourse, and I really wanted to make some pretty flowers to embellish some things i'm working on. I had a definite picture in my mind, but my last pathetic and ugly attempts were so horrid I gave up trying to sew them.

But then I remembered somewhere in the deepest recesses of my mind, a trick with synthetic fabric and flame.

What you do is cut some circles, no need to be perfect, or you can cut rough flower shapes, or even petal shapes. Then you hold them near the flame - just near enough so that the edges curl, and you keep turning the shape until the whole edge is singed. Then you sew together in any formation you like, and add beads or buttons for the middle.

I've used organza for the red flowers and a silky lining fabric for the black ones. You can't use natural fibres for this otherwise you will set fire to them! Only synthetic fibre works because essentially what you are doing, is melting it!

Each fabric behaves differently over the flame so you have to practice and experiment, which is half the fun, and I can tell you ... once you start, you can't stop!

Finished Silverado Corset

Well the Silverado corset is finished, but now i'm all dressed up and nowhere to go!  Jimmy is still in bed, and has been prescribed 2 different types of antibiotic as the infection is in both of his lungs.  It's been touch and go as to whether he goes to hospital or not, but in the end, as he is responding to the treatment, the doctors have decided that he can stay here under our watchful eye.  Today, he is sitting up reading Top Gear magazines and is eating real food again -  the chicken satay flavour pot noodle was a step too far in revoltingness I think!

I know you've all been waiting to see the finished corset, so here it is:

Front:

and back

I'm very pleased with this corset.  I think it's the best i've ever made in terms of technical fit.  It goes in at the waist, out at the hips, in at the tummy, and out at the bust ... In other words, the squish factor is right and I don't have 4 more boobs than I should have!

The silver rubbery fabric was a b*gger to get right, and in the end I just did a few panels, glued it on then zigzagged the edges.  I have a small shortfall in some places near the binding, but I don't think the 'focus' of the whole ensemble is at the edges, so I guess nobody would notice!!

Pattern:  Silverado corset by Laughing Moon

Laughing Moon Silverado corset

Today I have been mostly cutting out. It takes the best part of a day to cut out a corset pattern (edit from the future - ha!). There are 40+ pieces to this one. I have decided to make one the same as the one pictured above because i've made it before which means the pattern is right and I can just get on with it - no toile. Time is of the essence here, I need it for next Saturday!!!  

The foundation fabric is this black coutil with satin flowers. Coutil is a traditional corset material. It is very closely woven cotton, very strong so that it can cope with tight lacing. There are 14 main peices of this, plus 6 gores, 2 for each boob, and 1 for each hip.


Then there's the lining, same number of peices, plus one back placket which will rest underneath the back laces to hide the crease which will become apparent on my back when the corset is laced. I am reducing by at least 4 inches, so the finished waist size will be 23 inches.

Because the lining is made of polycotton I want to interface it for extra strength. The interfacing is a woven one and so also has to be cut on the right grain ... that's all those peices AGAIN!!

When each peice is cut, they have to be marked up. Only the lining needs to be marked with the boning lines.

The most challenging part of this project will be attaching this rubbery fabric. To give you an idea of what it's like .. it feels like that non slip matting stuff, often used to stop fabric slipping when free motion quilting. I can't sew it into the seams for 2 reasons - 1) it makes the seems too bulky and 2) it hinders insertion of the bones into the chanels. It also scrunches up when the chanel is sewn. So the only answer is to glue it into place with double sided bondaweb (yes another cutting bonanza). This poses it's own problems because the hot iron burns the silver paint off, so it has to be done under several layers of fabric protection. I won't embellish the whole corset with this because it will make other things difficult, like closures. But the back placket and 3 side panels on each side will be made with this.

Guess what i'll be doing for most of this week!?

V&A Stays - Reconstructing History

So I have started work on the Reconstructing History V&A Stays patter as promised. View B, shown above. The front opening Stays with Stomacher. I followed the instructions given on the pattern. Just take a moment to read this bit yourself ....

It all seemed so simple, the pattern pieces are easy to trace. There are only four of them. I had a nagging doubt about cutting the front on the fold - it has laces ... where does the fold fit in??? The instructions didn't explain. I trusted the instructions because sometimes things become apparent as you work ..

I cut an outer set and a lining set - no interlining as this is only a 'toile'. I marked all the pieces appropriately, and sewed the back to the sides as per the instrutions. So far so good ...

Then I moved on to the front .. The instructions said sew the front to the sides (in same manner as back) ... hmmm... Then they said when that is done, you can try thing thing on and that "if the stays are too tight, let the seams out"

Houston we have a problem!
Actually Houston, we have several problems!

1) exactly how much of the half centimetre seam allowance is available for letting out??
2) actually it's all sewn up .. how do you get into the thing??

But before even considering those two points .. isn't there a bit missing???? I know it's supposed to be pulled in tight ... but this is a gap too far!

And even with some improvisation ... it still didn't look like the pattern picture up top. Here, you can see that I have sewed the sides to the front, and cut up the middle to form an opening. This gap is about right - you've got to allow for the body's 'squidge' factor.

BUT IT STILL DOESN'T LOOK ANYTHING LIKE THE PICTURE!

There are no more pattern peices, and the instructions were absolutely no help at all ... they say that once the front is sewn on, you can lace in a particular fashion ... Lace what?? Lace WHERE? It doesn't mention eyelets, let alone where to put them.

And another thing, the instructions don't actually tell you how to cut the pattern peices bearing in mind there are 2 versions of the stays ... ie: how does one deal with those flappy bits on the bottom?

When I cut into the flappy bits, the corset lay around the body better. But then what to do? View B, doesn't appear to have flappy bits. More improvisation required. But not yet.

I got so frustrated, reading, re-reading and reading again ... looking for missing pages which don't appear to exist, then checking that I had indeed cut all the pattern pieces. So I wrote to the company where I got the pattern from (looking at the pattern company website was even more useless than looking at the pattern). They are very nice and replied straight away. They said:

"You are not the first to be confused by this pattern ;-) The centre front piece cut on the fold is a seperate stomacher and need to be boned and finished as an entirely seperate entity followng instructions on page 4. The sides of the stays are finished then eyeletted and laced and the stomacher is popped in behind before the laces are tightened"

OK .. but there are NO SUCH INSTRUCTIONS on page 4!!!!!!! Grrr... "confused" is such an understatement that it is floating about somewhere near the 7th circle of hell!

Luckily (breathing deeply) I have my 'bible', with extremely appropriate title (in this case)

Now I see the problem ... In the chapter which covers 17/18th c stays, the patterns look like this:



Can you see the missing link? There IS a peice missing!!!

And this is what the diagrams on the pattern instructions SHOULD look more like ...

A separate stomacher which can be joined into the stays with little tabs or eyelets so that the thing doesn't ping out and hit you on the chin when you least expect it!

So dear readers ... I will finish these Stays. I will have to improvise with what I have now that I have started, and I will be able to do it. BUT I do not recommend for one minute that you ever try this pattern for yourself!! At over £10 it's an expensive mistake to make!

Edit from the future:  This incident is what prompted me to start Sew Curvy Corsetry! (3/12/14)