Drawings and happenings ..

My book is due this month so I'm working very hard to tie up all the loose odds and ends,  bring it all together chapter by chapter, zip the files up and send them to my Publisher.  It's hard work and all consuming but no pain no gain !

One of the difficulties is pictures.  Where do I get nice corsetty pictures for my book, without infringing any copyrights, or having to pay through the nose?  Well .. most of the book is tutorial, which means photos and video taken as I go.  The intro chapters, and the bits where I talk about corsetry through the ages, are a little more challenging, but for this I have found a few copyright free images, and the rest, I have drawn myself using a nifty piece of software called Artrage.  I love it because it's much more like proper drawing than other arty packages such as Illustrator and Photoshop but it still uses similar technologies such as layers.  Here's one I 'drew' earlier to illustrate the archetypal Victorian corset shape - small waist, rounded bust and hips:

I have also been in touch with a local museum to see if they would let me photograph some of their items.  They said yes, and waived a large part of their copyright fee, but more excitingly, they put me in touch with a lady who has a private family collection.  I went to see her last week, and though I can't show you what she showed me - because I haven't got any pics - I can tell you that I spent an entire afternoon with her, clutching the most exquisitely carved and polished 1795 stay busk which would have been slotted into the front of a pair of stays a little like this:

source

.... and examining a huge huge pile (and I mean a mountainous pile) of beautiful Victorian and Edwardian underwear and dresses which had belonged to her grandmother!  Not only that, but the lady was able to show me pictures of her ancestors, wearing the very clothes I was looking at!  It was a surreal afternoon I can tell you, and extremely enjoyable.

Hello ..? Is anybody there?

What a month!  I haven't stopped!  Here's a quick rundown...

Did I mention that the day I left my day job, I received my first signed client contract?  A lovely bride who is getting married in July and who wants a full over bust corset, with straps, to be worn under her vintage 1970's wedding dress.  I spent the first week or so of my 'freedom' working on the design for her corset and then making up a toile for her.  In the following weeks, the toile was fitted.  Now I am working on a second toile just to get the shape, fit and style absolutely perfect before I start work on the real thing.

My client has very kindly given me permission to publish these.  Here are the front side and back views of her first toile.

I've also been furiously working on my Corset e-Book which is due for submission to the Publisher in June! Argh!  I have written all the technical bits, and now i'm ploughing ahead with the practical bits.  

For illustrating various techniques in corsetry, I have decided to make up a historical corset from Jill Salen's book, "Corsets".  The reason for this is because by making up a genuine Victorian corset pattern from a book, readers will learn several things, namely:

• how to scale up a pattern from a historical source or book such as this
• how to construct a basic two layer Victorian corset from start to finish
• how to make the corset so that it has a smooth outside and inside
• how to make and apply external boning chanels
• how to fortify the corset using steel bones, fabrics and other techniques such as cording
• how to embellish the finished corset with trim and with decorative embroidery.

Here is a picture of the historical corset from the book that I have chosen to model this work upon:

ALSO going on in the House of Marmalade, is ofcourse my ever growing business, Sew Curvy Corsetry which I have been developing and expanding.  There are just not enough hours in the day!  Most of my work with Sew Curvy over the last month, apart from sending out orders every day, has been involved with getting Custom Corset Patterns up on the site, and finding out how to make and send a decent HTML newsletter to customers who have signed up to receive news, updates and special offers.

Custom patterning was an idea I had a while ago, but drawing all the pictures and diagrams and instructions, ready to be uploaded onto the site, not to mention creating the special measurement form, is what has taken the time.  But it's up there now!  Basically, there are 6 different shapes to choose from, you fill in a form with some key measurements, and I draw a custom corset pattern based on your personal size.  To my knowledge, nobody else in the UK offers this service and it has already proved to be very popular!  I have received orders from as far and wide as California and Saudi Arabia!  Very exciting.  Click over to the Custom Corset Pattern section of my website to investigate further.

My first Sew Curvy Newsletter, "News from the Corset Front", went out mid-April after I had discovered a marvellous programme called MailChimp which lets users customise ready made templates, upload pics and link to social networks all for free!   If you are a small business who would like to start a newsletter feature, then I recommend it, it's brilliant.  If you'd like to sign up for my newsletter, click HERE.

If you managed to click through to the newsletter, you will see that I'm about to upload to the website things for making bras!  This includes patterns, elastics, and findings.  I am busy sourcing some pretty bra fabrics to use for this, along with all sorts of other what have yous to add to the site.

AND as if all that weren't enough to keep a whirling dirvish occupied for every second of every day, there has also been the garden - I am compelled to grow our own veg as some of you will know, and have been doing so with a vengeance - I am trying to keep my other blog updated with progress in the allotment, but have so far, failed miserably. 

There has ofcourse been lots of lovely weather to enjoy and other excitement such as a trip to London with my very best friend in the whole world who lives in Italy, and thankfully, a few bank holidays, so relaxing in secluded spots by the Thames, found on bike rides in the country with Mr Marmalade, hasn't been totally off the agenda, otherwise my head might explode, but hopefully now, i've caught up with everything, and will post a little more regularly than once a month!

Plans and delays

Thank you all for the very constructive and helpful comments left on my last post about what to put in the book.   I can safely say that most of those topics will be covered!  Watch this space!

The last few weeks have been quite hard work.  One new year's resolution has turned a complete 180 degrees and so i'm pointing in completely the opposite direction to the course I had planned for the year, but this is a very good thing.  There are major plans afoot - clue in the picture above, and I will keep you posted as I can.

I wanted to mention comments.  It's not that i'm a rude person or a bad blogger - at least I try not to be, but I don't always get time to answer comments at the moment.  This should improve alongside the aforementioned 'plans' but for now, my day job is exhausting me and hence so little posting.  It will get better I promise, but in the meantime, I plan to reply to as many comments as possible via the comments box.

The other problem with comments is that I noticed that Blogger has decided to keep some back!  I had comments from October waiting to be "approved", much to my horror!   And so to all the people who thought I had ignored them - sorry!  I didn't realise.  All comments are now safely approved and regularly checked.  I really am grateful for all feedback, so thank you all!  Please do keep visitng and commenting... It would be nice to meet some of you lurkers!

He is Heavy, He's my Brother

I have been consternating over a new machine for ages, and I have wanted an Industrial for even longer ... I don't know, there's just something about them that I fancied - perhaps it's the fact that they are a whole tablesworth of machine, or the fact that they are so fast, or that they look so "professional" in a Coronation Street type of way .. but anyway ...

As I said, I had wanted one for ages, and one day when casually browsing through Lucy's blog I spied one in the background, and asked her about it .. and she said that hers was a Brother named "Brian"and that he was the best thing that had happened to her (sewingly speaking) .. 

 ... which was quite serendipitous as a few months previously,  I'd had an engineer round to service my little Janome, who'd said that the Brother industrials were quite simply THE machine to have, especially if they were Japanese ...

He mentioned something about horsepower ...  I didn't realise that this actually meant "noisy" and very very VERY FAST ..  It's like a car .. imagine mini/ferrarri when thinking domestic/industrial ... 

e-Bay became my New Best Friend, and before too long I had "accidentally" bid, and then two weeks later ...

The threading is a little different,  but you can wind your bobbin while you sew, which is nice ...

It took a while to get used to my new baby, but now I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Monstor Machine ... He (for he is definitely a testosterone filled "he"), needs a name.

Any ideas?


There will be a small prize for the best suggestion :)

Catching up

Lovely readers, thank you SO MUCH for all your lovely comments on the last post.  I see some of you have even come out of hiding, and your blogs have been discovered and bookmarked!  Thankyou!

I know I have been a very bad blogger of late - there is just so little time in the day for everything! Especially as this time of year there is also so much preserving, processing and potting of the produce I have been growing all year.  BTW, for those of you with a like mind, have you seen The Jam Jar Shop . com online?  Marvelous place!! bulk jam jars.  I have recycled as much as possible but there has been so much harvest - and I have been in a foraging frenzy too - I have had to buy 2 lots of jars on top!  Guess what everyone is getting for Christmas this year!

Also, I realise I have neglected the seed swap which I initiated back in July.  To be honest, the response was very small! There were six of you.  You know who you are!  I am happy to facilitate the swap still, but fear that as only one person has reminded me about it, that the rest of you have been just as busy as I have been!  Do let me know.

For the next few weeks, as well as starting to write my book, I have a corsetry workshop in Oxford to facilitiate and two corset commissions to be getting on with.  

One is with an Artist friend of mine, we are doing a swap, I am making her a corset and she is painting my shoes - she is brilliant at shoes amongst other things - have a look HERE.  

The other commission is not so much a "commission" as I asked if I could make my friend a corset to learn some things with.  So it is a "learning corset" and what a challenge!  Here is a picture of the first fitting.  As you can see, this is going to be what is known as an "asymetrical" corset, meaning that the sides are not going to be symetrical because she isn't.  Not being rude.  Nobody is perfectly symetrical, but some are less so than others!

More on this in my next post!

Also on the table, a male corset using this fabulous fabric which is an Italian designed (British made) cashmere/wool suiting fabric with a polyester paisley suiting lining.

Better get on with it!

Where is My Mind?

Tap tap ... is anybody there????  

Hellooo???

I am veering somewhere between this (without helper) .... 

and this ...

With some of this in between ...

I am considering submitting a proposal to "The Universe",  suggesting that some essential works need to be carried out with changes  implemented as soon as possible ... namely:

• Houses that clean themselves
• Children (esp. teenage boys) who don't get into trouble
• Husbands who don't need looking after
• Friends who never get in trouble
• Facebook to either be abolished, or integrated into brain (whichever is easier)
• Self sustaining or magic bank accounts (ditto)
• Businesses that run themselves ..
• Minds that make themselves up

Do you think that's too much to ask?  Have I missed anything?

I'll be back VERY soon with my promised skirt block tutorials - as you can see, I HAVE been working on them!  But I want them to be as easy peasy and inspiring as possible - and that's easier said than done, I've discovered..

Getting There

Thankyou readers for all your lovely kind wonderful encouraging and supportive comments on the last post!

Perhaps it is a January 'thing' - I have really felt the darkness this year, but every day brings more minutes of light, and soon, when the snow finally melts, my sewing room may be warm enough to sit in once again!

That's not to say that I haven't been making things, oh no! I have LOADS to show you and as usual my mind is brimming over with more ideas than will ever see the light of day! I am working on a new name and slightly new look and focus - well we all need a bit of a makeover now and then to make us feel zippyzappy, don't you agree?! I'd like to get back to regular posting soon, so watch this space!

And thankyou again!

Celebrating the Dark

At last the Solstice! In a few days the nights will be shorter, and the light will start to grow. How glad I am. For now I shall revel in the darkness of the longest night and the pause between here and the return of light.

Heaving a sigh of relief, for it feels like the journey to this point has been a long one, I will be spending the next two weeks 'hibernating'. Such bliss. A pause before the next growth cycle, a time for renewal, regeneration, rebirth, recuperation. A space to just 'be' and a time to spend relaxing amidst family, friends, community.

Not everything is done yet, there are still gifts to create and deliver, but I have stayed away from the secular high street frenzy that is Christmas and will continue to do so.

Tonight our tree was decorated and lit, marking the start of seasonal festivities in the House of Marmalade.

Happy Solstice everybody!

Another Day in the Treasure Trove

I've done another shift at Antiques on High in Oxford. My shelf (above) was all but bare! Very exciting to think that people have been buying my handmade bits and bobs, and even more exciting that all the corset kits I had there, had gone! I came away with a fistfull of little brown envelopes full of cash!

The usual range of vintage loveliness was on sale, including these handbags from the 40's. I am particularly in love with the grey barrell shaped bag. The green raffia bag is detachable from it's frame - presumably in it's day, it came with several different shades of raffia bag, so that you could co-ordinate your outfit accordingly!

The poison bottles - of which there are many - caught my eye. So intriguing don't you think? Just like Alice in Wonderland ..

These earrings from the 30's and 40's are to die for! Particularly the sparkly dangly ones.

When I was a little girl, I read all of the Famous Five books, and the Mallory Towers books, and the Naughtiest Girl, Nancy Drew etc., Total escapism. I loved Enid Blyton.

I had my very own "Antiques Roadshow" moment when I showed this comb to one of the resident 'experts'. I bought it years and years ago - perhaps as many as 15 - for not very much money (because I didn't have any in those days!). I was told that because of the Art Nouveau metal work, it's worth quite a lot of money! Not enough to pay my mortgage though!

I never realised that accordions are so pretty. So many rhinestones! And I'm a sucker for those. Shame they're not small enough to wear!

Small World

Today I had a conversation over a cup of tea and a latte about - amongst other things - blogging and bloggers. My companion and I discussed the merits of blogging and how it changes things for people in lots of positive ways big and small. As bloggers ourselves, we talked about how blogging had been a positive force in our own lives, having since we started, improved our creativity, made us notice things we may not have noticed before, honed our writing skills, revealed talents we didn't know we had, provided motivation and inspiration and given us access to community, enabling us to connect with many like minded people who have enriched our lives in all sorts of ways and who, if it were not for blogging, or the internet, we may otherwise never have known.

We had such a lovely conversation my companion and I, not just about blogging, but all sorts of other things too, that nearly 2 hours flew by without so much as a second's notice - as it always does when one is having fun.

I admit, I was nervous, for this was a "blind date" of sorts. I wasn't sure if I would be able to say a single interesting thing, and was worried that my companion would wish she hadn't driven the 5 miles out of Oxford centre after the business which bought her to these parts today. But you see, I have "known" Tracy for ooooh ... perhaps over a year now (?) and so I needn't have worried one jot because there was no need for awkward, icebreaking 'small talk' or 'getting to know you' type of questions. Its a bit strange really but I've seen it described so, many times. Infact, meeting this lovely lady face to face was like meeting someone I have real coffee with quite regularly! It didn't feel at all as if we'd 'not met' before ... Infact, by the time I had walked the short distance back home after our meeting, I had already thought of a trillion and one things I should have said or asked or would have liked to find out or follow up ...

Tracy, it was a joy to meet you today, and I hope we can continue our many conversations next time .. and I really hope there is a next time.

Sew Poorly

I've been laid low with a horrid ear infection! I thought it was just a little swelling, but by Thursday last I was in such pain that in tears I called the surgery to be told that they only had an appointment the following Monday (today) and that the whole of the West Oxfordshire medical team were "training" for the whole of that afternoon!! I swear it would be easier to get an appointment with Dr Who in his Tardis these days! Anyway, I think the receptionist took pity on my tearful whimpering and, after I explained the problem, managed to fit me in with a doctor before said 'training' event! I came away with a bottle of antibiotic eye drops (yes EYE drops) to drop in my ear, and thankfully, they seem to have done the trick! Apparently the pharmaceutical company who makes these drops, couldn't be bothered with the time and expense of re-licencing them for ear purposes ... not that that decision was reflected in the price!

I'm not the only one who's had some 'medical' attention. While the aforementioned doctors were 'training', a nice man came to my house to service my sewing machine. Yes, came to my house! I couldn't bear to drop her off in a shop and wait the prescribed two weeks for her return, and so it's lucky that I found out about this man.

Look a the state of my needle plate! The nice man had a special file, so it's smooth again now, but these divvets were playing havoc with my sewing as you can imagine! They're there because I had a nasty habit of pulling the fabric through from the back which bends the needle, and then all it takes is one pin to cause a crash, and then a crater.

And look what happens with a blunt needle ... really I had no idea!! The strip on the left is blunt needle syndrome, and on the right, nice new needle perfection.

Meanwhile it's been busy busy busy here, and will continue to be so for the next three weeks. On the table, I've got my ongoing shelf stock makes, a party dress, a corset (for sale), another party'ish dress, and oh .. did I mention my day job.... it's the big conference the week after next .. the one for 500+ people that I was hired to organise ... eeek! The overtime is going to get me one of these ...

So I don't mind too much!

Shopping Anyone?

Yesterday was my first shift at Antiques on High in Oxford, where I have a shelf in the Craft Gallery selling my wares. The shop is a 'co-operative' where antique dealers and crafts people pay a small amount for space to sell their treasures and work one day per month per 'shelf'. It's a great way for people to 'share a shop'.

I thought you might like to come to work with me! No? ... OK .. you do some shopping, I'll show you around...

What about starting the day with some sewing ... there are buttons, and pin cushions, equipment and thimbles, but you might need deep pockets! that little duck down there is made of silver and costs £395!! Worth every penny i'd say!


Fancy a cup of tea? Perhaps there's some cake in one of the tins? Lots of pretty cups and plates to choose from ..

Need some party accessories for later? Choose from bead encrusted bags, divine vintage stones, funky enamel brooches, even collars for the gentlemen and spats for the ladies ..


Glass of wine anyone?? Pick a glass...

Or perhaps just another cup of tea, in a teapot found at the bottom of the South China Sea ... Can you see the barnacles?

When you're Christmas shopping this year, remember, that all antiques and vintage treasures are ...
GREEN!

For more delicious vintage pics from 'Ants', click HERE.