Straight Laced

It's taken a good 2 days to recover from our weekend in London, after 2 days of shopping and 2 nights of dancing, not to mention several gin and tonic's in between. Now I am back in the land of the living with two Notes to Self:

1: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT buy new heels, wear straight away to complete outfit during first shopping trip, and then attempt to wear all night for dancing...

2: Do not, I repeat again, do not, under any circumstances ever go to London when the Victoria Line is out of service on a Saturday, unless both a helicopter (simpler than understanding the bus routes and stops between Vauxhall/Victoria), and a rickshaw (for mangled feet as in 1 above) are both freely available. Failing those, perhaps one of those "beam me up" thingys that are used in Star Treck.

Notwithstanding those two 'minor' hitches we did have a FABULOUS time as usual, and yes everyone, I did remember to take my knickers (thanks for the reminders)!

On the subject of Lingerie, on Friday afternoon, I had the chance to try a corset by Velda Lauder. She is one of the UK's leading Corsetiers who employs something she calls the "uber curve". I'm not exactly sure what this is, and why it's different but her corsets are ultra curvy, and ultra effective. And although there were details I wasn't impressed with on these corsets, I was amazed at their technical brilliance. Better than any corset I have ever tried (or made), and surprised by the fact that the one she put on me, had a 22 inch waist I was even more astounded at it's stomach flattening properties. I spent a while with her and her corsets - mostly staring idiotically into the mirror and saying "wow! I can't believe it!", and since then have been thoroughly enthused about practicing my own skills, in order to acheive similar results with fabrics which inspire me. Today, I therefore have mostly been researching suppliers and revising my corset books.

I also spent the whole day on Saturday looking for a nice black broderieanglaise fabric to make my first "uber corset" with. Round and round I traipsed/hobbled/limped, taking much the same route as the last time we went to London and fearing all the time about the welfare of my feet for that evening's entertainment. Both Cloth Shops on Berwick Street were thoroughly rummaged through and in shop (2) I found the following:

Some mesh in the remenant bucket ... i have no idea what I will do with it, but I liked it, and it was around £5. for a few metres!

The pink silk here was £8.00/metre but its very narrow. I THINK it's Kimono silk as there were some other japanese bits and bobs on the shelf it came from. The other two fabrics here are silk remnants and didn't cost anything!

but what I wanted was black broderieanglaise ... and eventually, I found some in Soho Silks. It wasn't QUITE right, but the nearest I could find..

I resolved to sell some of the corsets I have already made, in order to finance "phase 2". So when I got home, I remembered some black fabric I had in my stash which would be perfect to drape around Madge before attaching the corsets to her. DOH!! it was exactly what I had spent hours on Saturday combing the streets for and had been purchased at Cloth House (1) on our previous trip.

Anyway .. here are my corsets .. going onto ebay later today...

The second one I ever made, from a Simplicity Pattern, it's based on a Victorian style and has 21 steel bones:

This was next, it's the same pattern but different fabric

This pink underbust corset is made of cotton backed satin and is the same colour as ballet shoes. It's very shiny and one of my most favourite fabrics.

And then there's the red one which has been on this blog before, my best yet, but too small!! Grr..

I was quite surprised when I looked at them - having inspected a few "professional" ones on Friday and them still being fresh in my mind. Mine are quite alot better than I thought they were!