November 2006

This week has been pretty *eh* so I just indulged in a little retail therapy and ordered myself the early Christmas present of costume patterns. Yes you wicked Costume College Victorian costumers, you win!! To the dark side I go.

I got the underwear patterns (TV101 & LM100 plus the bustle wire) for now. As boring as it is, underwear must come first. These things seem much less painful on the checkbook when bought in pieces. Besides I could use a new Victorian corset for my Rohan Dress...

Nov 26 2006
My TV patterns arrived on Friday - yay! I just got to sitting down and reading through them. It all looks pretty straightforward. It’s always a good sign when you understand the gist of the directions the first time through.

I want to start on my corset right this minute but I have a cold and the process of lacing and fitting a toile doesn't really appeal at the moment. I'd probably work long enough to clear my work space and get out all my supplies before and then need a nap.

Bah colds!

May 15 2007
Thanks to lots of overly ambitious projects for my Costume College wardrobe, I've decided to ditch making the Doré corset this year. I've just run out of time so I'm going to cheat and buy another Frederick's of Hollywood corset and re-bone it with steel, like I did for my last corset. So this project is on hold for a while...

Oct 24 2009

I have some fun 1840's costuming on the agenda but before I can make the dress I have to make a new Victorian corset. So I pulled out the Laughing Moon pattern that has been languishing my my stash last night and cut out a toile.

So far I'm really liking the pattern! Not only are the instructions fabulous but all the pieces for each garment in the pattern are on their own sheet. No chopping up multiple sheets to get all your pieces - impressive!

Oct 28 2010
>The time has come - I am finally going to make a Doré Corset if it kills me!! Can't say I'm super excited about working on it but it's holding up my next couple of projects so I really need to just do it. It's only been on my to-do list for 4 years...

I'm using the Laughing Moon pattern, the Doré version (straight-seam). I cut out a toile of the pattern last October so I pulled that out, finished transferring the markings and put it together.

The fitting went pretty well. The bottom hip/waist fit very well indeed, the top not so much. That's my fault though as my bust to hip ratio isn't at all standard. A little tweaking and it should be fine. The one major alteration I needed to make was to raise the bust a bit, it was too low for period stuff IMHO.

There also wasn't much of a gap in the back. I realized when I went to cut out a second toile part of the reason for that - the pattern had 5/8" seam allowances and I had sewed it with 1/2" SAs. Umm opps. :P

Oct 29 2010

I got my second corset toile made and everything looks great so I figured out what I needed boning wise. That is when things got hard again.

So shipping prices from Corsetmaking.com and Farthingales Canada put me way over budget. Not acceptable right now. Vogue Fabrics (whom I've have a good experience with in the past) has the right price on shipping but their website is being a pain. It is slower than molasses and crashes every time I try to put a busk in my shopping cart. Moo. I'm going to try again in the morning and see if it's just an internet hiccup but I'm thinking I might have to find another option.

So any great suggestion on where to by some boning and a busk without having to overpay in shipping? I found Dragontown Corset Supplies in a Google search - they have low shipping and cheaper prices than Vogue Fabrics. Has anyone ever ordered from them?

Oct 29 2010
Thanks for your feedback guys! I couldn't find any horrible reviews and even heard some glowing ones so I went ahead and ordered my boning/busk from Dragontown. Yay! Now I just have to figure out what fabric to cover the coutil with. I like pretty corsets you know. I just can't decide if I want to go girly pretty (baby pink) or crazy pretty (lime green) or dark/gothic pretty (black or midnight blue). *ponders*

It's sad though - through the LJ corsetmaker's group I found most of the places on their resource list or referred to in posts either don't carry corset supplies anymore or don't exist anymore. The rest have minimum orders or high shipping rates (Vogue Fabrics & Dragontown being the notable exceptions with flat rate shipping and no minimums). Apparently the combination of few manufacturers + huge minimum purchases = difficult items to stock, especially for a small company. It's not a good sign at all - espeically for costumers like me who only dabble every so often in corsetmaking...

Nov 4 2010
Not too much happening in Jennylafleur land. I've strained something or other in my neck which has been rather uncomfortable. The worst thing is that is makes it hard to drive, very inconvenient that.

Mostly I've been sitting quietly with hot and cold compresses on my neck scheming about future costuming projects. It's been fun! Next up is the Victorian corset (the boning was shipping yesterday - yay!)

Nov 11 2010
I almost finished cutting out my Victorian corset today. I'm having a hard time deciding on a fashion fabric for the outside. I thought I had found the perfect thing last night but when I went to cut it out there wasn’t enough. Moo. So I need to look at the stash again.*sigh*

Nov 14 2010
I could just cry. I was really whaling on my Victorian corset tonight - got all but the binding done. Then I discovered that I forgot to order two pieces of boning. TWO LOUSY PIECES. *sob* Of course they are the ones that go right in the center front.

Do any of you happen to have two pieces of 13.5" spiral steel (the coil looking stuff) in your stash that I can buy off you? If not I guess I'm going to have to use reed or go buy some skinny cable ties or something 'cause I'll get killed on shipping/handling from any vendor on just two pieces of boning.

That's it the tool to cut spiral steel is going on my Christmas list so I can buy the rotten stuff by the yard from now on. Now where are those chocolate-covered peanuts from the Girl Scouts...

Nov 23 2010

I've finished the Victorian Corset last night yay! My emergency boning arrived earlier this week (thanks again vanessa_lynne - you are a lifesaver!!) but I wasn’t able to get back to the corset until yesterday. So I put in the new boning, stitched on the binding (zig-zag by machine!), stitched on some lace and added a drawstring in the top binding (the top came out slightly big somehow). And done!

I don't have any progress pics I'm afraid. It was a quick and dirty sort of project and honestly it went together like a dream. I would highly recommend the Laughing Moon pattern, good pattern, great directions. I could have made it in a day (I almost did!) barring the boning issue and such. Good to know for next time!

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