Melting Bones

Any decent Victorian garment is going to need bones. I'm making a quick bustier for one (quick is the important word here), so I'm using that plastic boning that comes in a roll. The directions advise that you cut the ends to round them, but I find that it's very difficult to get them smooth. They catch in the casings and are a complete pain. But I tight to myself, there's no reason I couldn't get the help of my friend, Fire!

I removed the bone from its casing, and cut it into a roughly roundish shape.



Hold it in the blue part of the fire for a couple of seconds. If you hold it in the yellow part, it will get sooty. (I learned that in chemistry class. I don't play with fire quite THAT much.)

You'll see the edges start to soften.


















While it's still warm, press the end against the table or your finger to smooth it.

















Slipping your bones back inside their casings will be a dream!

Black as Night, Red as Blood

Hello readers!
I've been busy sewing on a deadline.  This latest piece was commissioned by a friend of mine, to match the band Steam Powered Giraffe.  The deadline snuck up on me a bit, but I was able to complete it in time for her to attend their concert.  It's name is completely unrelated, however.  Because of its colors, the fact that I completed it Halloween night, and I STABBED myself more than I have on any other project of any kind, I call it Blood Sacrifice.

When I fitted the muslin, I installed a zipper in the front.  She wanted to keep it, instead of a busk.  In order to give it extra structure, I inserted a half inch bone on either side of the zipper, and it worked just fine.  Later, I also found countourcorsets.com, selling corsets for serious tight-lacers, many of which had zipper closures.  I had been worried that a zipper wouldn't handle the tension well, but that site disappeared my worries there.

I used Ageless Patterns #1042.  These patterns assume that you know a bit about corsetry, and a good deal about sewing.  Other than the slight confusion about which seams matched, I didn't find the minimal instructions to be a problem.  It turned out quite well, actually!  And my friend was pleased enough that it made those many, many, MANY pin-pricks worth it.

Three Lessons on Bias Tape

If you've ever sewn anything, you've probably had a need for bias tape.  Making your own creates a lot more options for whatever your purpose is.  I needed to make some to use as bone casing for my friend's corset.  I'd never made it before, but there's never a better time than when you have a very specific need!

I saw a tutorial like this one, that seemed like it would save some work, allowing me to create really long strips of bias tape.

Lesson 1:  when drawing your lines, mark the wrong side!
I marked the right side, and had trouble lining up my marks properly, had to turn the tube to cut it, and found out that well, my lines were not aligned.  *sigh*  I eyeballed it as I cut, and got some decently even strips.

Lesson 2:  Use a low-steam setting on your iron, or get one of those handy little bias tape folders.  I was doing this ally by hand, and earned some steamed fingers.  Ouch!

Once I got all my bias tape made, I realized that I'm going to have a bunch of little seams, that may interfere with inserting the boning.  Not good, but I'll have to make do.  But today, I found this:

Lesson 3:  You don't have to have squares to make the bias tape! 
I was thinking about this as I was cutting up my limited amount of fabric into chunks, but I'm not a math/geometry wiz.  I wasn't going to try anything, not with my fashion fabric, at least.  This one will be mighty handy next time!  Plus, the blog is called The Dread Pirate Rodgers!  Cute pun, great reference, excellent tutorial!

May you take these lessons I learned the hard way, and use them.

Making Madness

What have I been making lately?  A lot, actually!  My own deodorant (after a terrible breakout from the one I bought from Lush,) a new purse, a lot of artwork for my friend's movie, a corset for another friend, and food.  Lots of food!  Friend, memories, and plans to travel to NY.  So here's to marathons of crazy busy madness, because sometimes you need it.

Woman In Black

Last night, I took the Woman In Black blu-ray to my parents' house, and made them watch it.  (It's fun to scare my mom.  What can I say?)  I decided that this will most likely be my Halloween costume this year.  I've slacked HARD these last couple of years, and I really need to make up for it.  So the 2012 version of the film is set in the Edwardian era, which is roughly 1890 to 1918.  I made an Edwardian corset this winter, which would be perfect to wear under my mourning gown.  Except that I'm not sure what style the Woman In Black's clothing is. 

I've been scouring the interwebs all morning for good images of the costume, but there don't seem to be any.  I found this silhouette from behind, which tells us that the skirt isn't super voluminous, and neither are the sleeves.  From what I can tell (and please correct me if I'm wrong), that points to the Edwardian era.  

But then, there are these, which look more like Victorian clothing to me.

This photo, the adopted parents with Nathaniel, also look like late Victorian clothing. 

The timeline in the story is a little fuzzy, too.  I'm not sure how long ago the woman died.  I might go watch the movie again, to see if I can find dates on the death certificates in the movie.  At least it would give me a solid starting point.  I'd really like to find the costume test shots, but that would decidedly ruin the ghostliness of the Woman, for those who haven't seen the film. 

Anathema Still Needs Your Help!

Anathema is nearly half way funded, but Rachel still needs your help!

She's got five issues, FIVE to fund with this thing.  I know what's coming and let me tell you, it's going to be an exciting ride!  Forbidden romance, action, mystery, Monsters created by a monster fanatic?  What more could you possibly want?

Now, I know some of you are probably thinking that comics are for kids, or for geeks, or are wondering how you even read one.  Let me tell you though, that it's an amazing way of telling stories.  You see, like a film, you have the option of telling things with words, or with pictures.  Rachel's got this incredible way of selecting which tells what, for the best results.  She wrote one comic for an upcoming anthology in which all the text comes from actual letters, but the story is told in pictures.  Glorious!

We're going to be at C2E2 this weekend, promoting this thing.  She's only got a couple of weeks to raise the remaining $10K!  So please help!

Why would a person need to raise that much for a comic, you wonder?
Well, it's like this:  Rachel is not an illustrator, so she has to hire one.  He'll do an 11x17 drawing for each page.     There's 22 of those per issue.  Then, because the illustrator only does the pencil and ink, you have to hire someone else to color those.  It's a basic fact that there is a LOT of work involved. Christopher Mooneyham is the artist, and he's stellar.  Check him out!

Objects are Not As Close as They Appear

You know you get excited about a project, and you have these grand ideas for how much you'll accomplish on them?  You know that feeling when you don't accomplish that much, and it's not because of you?  Well, Rachel and I each felt this on consecutive days.

We started building Rachel's arcade machine.  But MDF is very, very very dusty, and my dad decided he didn't so much want his basement covered in microscopic glue and wood particles.  I don't blame him.  So, we have to wait for him to recover from the surgery he's having today (he's the woodworking genius), and a sunny, rain-free day that we can cut this stuff outside.  It's February in the Midwest.  That means it could be a while.  Rachel ordered the computer parts yesterday.

I finished the embroidery on my corset yesterday, and laced the whole thing up, thinking it was now wearable, if not finished.  How wrong I was!  My ribbon was too wide to fit easily through the grommets, and only one-sided.  To solve that, I folded it in half, and stitched it down.  It got a little wavy, but it was uniform enough that I didn't think it would be a problem.  In truth, it looked fine when I laced it.  The thing is, in altering the ribbon this way, I must have also shortened it by quite a bit.  A big enough bit that I am now unable to put on my corset! Now that I think about it, it was probably that I skipped grommets when I was doing the fitting, so I wouldn't have to do so much lacing and unlacing.  Gah.

I guess I will try to find the right color ribbon in the right size.  I'd rather not put white laces on my already white corset, but I may have to.  I was hoping I would get away without having to unlace that darn thing again.  Oh well.

Lessons learned.

Color Conundrum

I've been working on putting together a tutorial for the hook and needle organizer that I made, but it's rather involved!  I think I may have to refer to it whenever I make another, honestly.  In the mean time, I thought I would bring you up to speed on the corset progress.

It's got a busk, and grommets down one side.  I'm doing the rest this weekend.  The next step is trim, but here is where I have a problem.  I have no idea what I wanted it to look like!  Naturally, I thought about doing it in green.  Even went and bought this bias tape.

But I don't like it.  At least not against a sea of white.  It's too... Easter colored, or too... I don't know.  Just not good.

photo from Jo-Ann Fabrics

I asked for color suggestions, and got brown and mauve.  While both of these are nice, neither really screams me, you know?  So I'm stuck.  

I did pick up some glorious lace, though!  I decided not to go with the wide lace, mostly because I couldn't find any that I liked very well.  I got this lovely stuff.  

photo from trimplace.com

I might weave a bit of ribbon through it, but we'll see.  This lace is only about an inch, maybe 1 1/2 inches tall, but it's lovely.  So what do you think?  Which color would be best on a white corset? 

And don't forget to check out the group flickr page.