So, I spent most of July madly sewing these to get them done in time to vend at this huge pagany/mythical musical festival called FaerieWorlds that was held the first weekend in August at this winery in oregon. A bunch of friends and I pitched in the cost for a booth -- $650 was too much for me!! Sadly, only two went bye-bye, but I still wanted to share some of my hard work! These are all of the small sizes that fit on my sister's teensy weensy dress form -- the eight or so that are bigger than waist 30" need real people to wear them!
These are all (but one) made out of Indian suits -- so I don't know if this should maybe go in the resconstructed board, but these are more complex of a reconstruction than a cut up t-shirt....
This is one of my favorites, purple silk. Everyone who tried it on looked beautiful in it, including the 13 year old:)
The beading and embroidery is wonderful -- I love the tiny spring-like beads that are used in Indian beading! This underbust started out as the main piece of a suit, and the point at the top of the underbust would point down to the woman's feet on the suit. I have enough fabric for another one in the fabric with a busk in the centre, made out of the sleeves of the suit that also had intricate embroidery and beading.
This is also one of my faves -- mauve silk, this one started out as a sari.
So the fabric in the centre around the busk is the main part of the sari, and the embroidery is the decorative end of the sari (called the "pallu"). So I didn't do the beading and embroidery myself! People keep asking me. I start with the awesome fabric, and make them into awesome underbusts.
This shows the detail of the embroidery and beading. This corset took me SEVENTEEN HOURS to complete, and that was largely because of having to smash out and pick out all of the beads from the seam allowances, fray checking and tying the threads off. So that's an extra 3-5 hours more than normal, just hammering and tying! But I'm so pleased with how it turned out -- the fabric was just so beautiful. I have one half completed that I'm hoping will fit me when it's done (I made some mistakes, so it's shrunk by several inches on each side... ) Plus I've got enough fabric from the sari (it's 6-6.5 yards long) to make a skirt, too! But this one is definitely not my size (I'm a 16-18).
One of the first ones I made, back in May. I was just going to make this out of the suit and use green laces to bring out the green, and then my sister brought me this awesome silk that she got for a steal.
Close-up of the contrast dupioni silk boning channels, and the fantastic embroidery. The embroidery only goes around the front four panels, four are less intricate embroidery, and the back panel with the lacing is embroided like these.
Simple black all around, with wonderful beading/embroidery in the centre.
Detail of the embroidery/beading. I fell in love with this. There was actually more decorative border than there was fabric to make the rest of the underbusts with, so I'm trying to decide what to do with about 20 more inches of this decoration....
I fell in love with this fabric, as wild as it is. It's actually flocked -- not velvet, actual flocking, with sparkles set into the flocking. I'm really glad that I went to th e effort to match up the fabric pattern at the busk.
This shows the sparkles a little bit, but still not as much as in real life. It's so awesome! I wish I had more of this left -- there definitely isn't enough for another one. Maybe a cute bag?
This was made out of another suit -- I managed to squeeze this XS AND an XL out of the front and back. The bias tape is made out of the pants that came with the set -- an indian suit will usually include the main bodice part that usually falls to the knees, REALLY baggy pants, and an often sheer piece that wraps around the neck. So the stripes are from the pants. I like how it's kind of zany:)
The side view. The back is made out of the back of the suit, that is just the embroidery, without the sequins.
This is one of the few that wasn't made out of a suit -- it was made from a Made In Indonesia dress, with the fern on the front. Rayon!
I love the fabric design on this, it reminds me of a multi-coloured purple dalmatian:)
So, construction!
I started out picking out all the seams in the suits, so that I could make the most of the fabric. I drafted all of my own patterns for these; if you wanted to make one, you could follow the directions from Roethke's post at
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=122286.0, or check out the 90ish page corset making thread for links to other pattern drafting sites. Mine are much more even on the top and bottom; they don't have the point at the front and bottom. I cut out the fashion fabric pieces one-by-one, and then a lining, and 1-2 strength layers, depending on the type of fashion fabric.
After everything was cut out, I started with sewing twill tape channels to the centre of all the non-edge pattern pieces.
Next, I inserted the busks on those that have them (for those that didn't, I sewed four-five boning channels on the front panel.)
Then, I basted the edges, and sewed the next panel's three pieces onto the edge (so lining and strength layer on the bottom, and fashion fabric on top).
I folded those over, pressed with a pressing cloth, and then sewed the boning channel through all layers. I kept doing this, and on the back, I top stitched right next to the seam after I flipped over (not putting a boning channel on that last seam, but topstitching to get the fabric flat).
On the back, I folded the top fashion fabric over and pressed with pressing cloth, then did the same with the bottom lining, pressing it an itsy bitsy amount short of the fashion fabric, so that it won't show. I topstitched it with my handy dandy "edge joining foot."
Sturdy grommets with my skookum grommet press.
Bias tape out of the matching or corresponding fabric -- I can't recommend this highly enough! Bias tape is so awesome and useful! I've started cutting out twice as much as I think I'll need, just to have neat bias designs on hand, or gorgeous fabrics.
That's pretty much it! I can take some photos of an in-progress one if it wasn't clear how I put the pieces together, and would be happy to answer any questions.
