The Great British Sewing Bee Does Corsets - Part 1

So last night was the ‘Structure’ episode of The Great British Sewing Bee, which meant corsetry. Making corsets was the technical challenge for the episode, followed by a short piece on the ‘history of the corset’. I’ve put that in inverted commas for a reason, which I’ll get to in my next post!

First things first, thoughts on the contestants’ corsets.

The Corsets

Image from The Great British Sewing Bee Facebook page.
(Of course, this is also another gratuitous Patrick pic, what can I say?)

I’ve got to say, I’m really impressed with what they made! Particularly considering the limitations, which I’ll discuss in a moment, they produced some really pretty garments!

Amanda (a fellow teacher) made her own bias binding, but alas that slowed her down and meant she didn’t quite get finished in time, but top marks for effort and trying to give that fine finish.

Some of the materials they used were appropriate, such as eyelets and spiral steel boning (no rigilene, as some feared, which is a small victory in itself). Rigilene doesn’t work well for corsetry (it’s far too flimsy, for one thing), so it was great to see them working with steel boning.

And I must say just how envious I am that they had access to hand presses for the eyelets! I so badly want one, but they are so expensive! A hand press is definitely on my to-save-for list, but they’re not a necessity for corsetry, so we can do without!

But, those limitations:

• They had four hours to make their pieces – I definitely couldn’t make one of my corsets in that time (though I do cut and tip my own boning and hand-finish my binding, for example).
• There were some nice things about the pattern they followed – the seamlines down the front and the top and bottom lines were attractive – but there wasn’t much curve to the pattern. It clearly wouldn’t give any reduction and was quite tubular.
• It didn’t look like they had access to fabrics specifically made for corsetry, ie coutil.  Instead the contestants were left to choose their own fabrics from the usual haberdashery. If they’d been able to use coutil, they would have had much better results, without so much rippling seen in some of the pieces made in finer cottons (looked like a couple were made in poplin, for example).

Get Your Supplies

If you want to make a corset using the right fabric, my favourite suppliers are Vena Cava and Sew Curvy, both UK-based (both ship internationally, though, so go ahead if you’re not in the UK yourself).  

In celebration of the Sewing Bee's corsets, Burda Style are currently giving away this downloadable corset pattern for free - I haven't used this pattern myself, but it does look quite tubular, I'm afraid.  But fear not, if you want something more curvy, Sew Curvy have launched their first corset pattern this week, which promises to be more hourglass - again, I haven't tried this one myself, but Julia is a specialist in corsetry, so she knows what she's doing!

Over to You

What did you think of last night’s Sewing Bee?  Did it give you the courage to try out making your first corset?  Do you have questions about how to do that?   What did you think of the contestant’s pieces?

Watch out for my next post where I'll look at the 'history' part of the show!

Edit: Part 2 is here!

Stationery/Sewing Bag of Love

So I'm a teacher, as you might already know.  I have to lug lots of stuff around different classrooms - my pens, pens for students to use, scissors, board markers, board eraser, diary, glue, rulers, photocopied handouts, books, blank paper ... and so on.  My colleagues often use toolboxes for all this equipment; I've been using a tote bag, where everything floats around in the bottom so I can't find it!

For ages I've been on the lookout for a bag with different sections, with no luck, so for my final project on the oilcloth course, I decided I'd make one ...

I've mentioned Norfolk Textiles before and as I was pouring through their many pages of oilcloth, struggle to make a decision, I spotted this toile de jouy and instantly knew it would be an 18th century inspired, grey on grey fabric combination.  I played with the directions of the stripes, pieced the bottom of the bag (very 18th c!) and, as patchworkers would say, 'fussy cut' the side pockets to have the main toile motifs at the centre.

I also wanted a pop of colour to avoid getting stuck in 'Greysville', so I went for the dusky rose polka dot lining (yes, another colourway of the tote bag fabric), which I tied in with a grey inside pocket:

I was really lucky to find matching grey grossgrain ribbon to reinforce the top of the bag and side pockets at the local market.  This stuff looks gorgeous in real life - it has a lovely silvery sheen.  (Plus, it helped avoid the oilcloth sticking too much!  Though the stripe and toile are matt oilcloth, so that is less sticky.)

I also made sure it was big enough to fit A4 folders in the main body, as I have those for each of my classes.  (Unfortunately, the bag doesn't photograph so well as a whole - it's a bit floppy!)

The end pockets aren't quite so pretty, but I only had half a metre of the toile fabric.

I'm really pleased with how this came out - it's really pretty and everyone who's seen it has loved it and asked where I bought it!  Even better, it's practical and fits all my stationery bits inside, yay!

Usually there's something about one of my makes that I'm not 100% in love with, but I think this is probably my most successful make so far - love it!

Oilcloth Tote Detail

Here's the promised detail shot from my oilcloth tote bag (and, as promised, without any shots of the horrible top-stitching!):

This was fun and simple to do; I particularly liked following the leaf motif around the edge of the large applique.

You see, oilcloth is evil to topstitch on, but free machine embroidery avoids all those problems ... and it's not so bad to sew normal seams on (though the fabric does stick to itself when right sides together, so it can be a pain to align your fabric pieces).

Oilcloth is fun and cute, just beware that you'll want to curse it if you have to topstitch the stuff!  I didn't get round to trying stitching with tissue paper, which is another tip for sewing with the stuff.

Have you tried out oilcloth before?  Any tips on sewing with it?  Any fabrics you love, but are a pain in the arse to sew with?

Fabric of Win

I got this fabric about a month ago.  I saw it in the local market and my mum bought me a couple of metres of it as I loved it so much - I wanted to make a circle skirt with it ... Then I had to go back a couple of days later and buy some more, I love the fabric so much, it needs to be a dress.

But the question is, which dress?  It's actually an impossible decision!

As soon as I saw this fabric, it said to me 'big skirt', so I think I need to obey that.  And it's such an awesome fabric with a lot going on that it needs a simple pattern.

At the moment, Retro Butterick 5748 is winning, but I just can't commit until I'm sure this is the perfect pattern for this amazing fabric.

Am I the only one who sometimes gets frozen by this kind of perfectionism?  

Do you cling on to a fabric because it's just so awesome that you feel that you need to save it for the perfect pattern?  Or when your sewing skills are 'good enough' to do the fabric justice?

Do you get a bit scared of those sacred fabrics?

If you have any ideas for a pretty pattern for this one, please do let me know!

Fabrics for Aprons

If you've come over here from Jane of All Trades, you might remember me mentioning something about a petal apron giveaway.  Well here's something to whet your apetite while I'm working on them:

And if you didn't see it on Jane of All Trades, here's what these fabrics will be made up into:

I'll be making a few full aprons and a few half aprons, so the lucky winners will have a choice.  The making is taking a little longer than I'd planned as I've made some changes to the pattern, so I hope this will keep you satisfied in the meantime  ;)