Wondercon!

Yesterday I went to Wondercon. If you have no idea what that is, it is a comic book convention held in San Fracisco that is run by the same people as Comic-Con. It was lots of fun. Really, I am more of a manga girl than a comic fan, but I like going anywhere where people dress up in fantastical clothes. B and I met up with a really good friend of mine and we had lots of fun hanging out. I got to chat with the Studio Foglio folks. They write my favorite online comic, Girl Genius, and Kaja complimented my outfit!

I wore the hat I posted about last week, the corset it was made to match, a thrift store shirt, and a skirt I bought years ago from Gallery Serpantine, cable knit sweater tights, and my dickens boots. The skirt is now way too big, but I don't think it was too noticeable.

This last one is a bit dark, but I really liked the pose.

I originally made this corset as a mock up, since I had the fabric leftover from a bodice I made for myself for faire. As I worked on it I fell more in love with the fabric, so I spent the time to finish it well and I think I turned out really well. The teal is cotton twill, and the lining is a grey cotton/poly twill. I plan on doing a full critique of it sometime soon.

I hadn't been to a convention in years and this one made me want to go to FanimeCon, an anime convention in San Jose, CA. I used to go every year, but I haven't been in at least 4 years. The costumes at Fanime used to be out of this world!

Nothing is without flaw...

Now on to the things I don’t like about this corset. As I said, this was one of my very early sewing projects. I didn’t know much about fabrics and I don’t think I had ever seen a good quality corset in person, let alone examined one closely. There are a few things that I don't like about it: The lining fabric, the construction method, the bias binding, the grommets, and the cut.

Fabric-This corset is two layers of ugly beige cotton duck, and one layer of upholstery fabric. This thing is practically bullet proof, and much heavier than it needed to be. The duck has probably stretched, but since I never bothered to take measurements of it, I am not really sure.

Construction- The upholstery brocade is fused to a layer of cotton duck, and the second layer of duck is the lining. The lining and outer layer were constructed separately, and then sewn together. Since I was new to sewing I didn’t realize how important accuracy was, so when I went to sewing the two layers together, none of the seam lines matched. This is *very* noticeable when you look at the lining because the stitch lines that created my boning channels do not in any way line up with the seam lines. Plus, I was apparently randomly changing thread colors on the lining. Thankfully, the shell doesn't have the thread color issues. So, between the ugly beige and the even uglier seam lines, this isn’t a corset I generally show off the interior of.

The Bias Binding- Ok, so I know I said before that I was proud of myself for haing taken the time to make the satin bias tape, and that is really true. However, my skill i applying said tape was...well, there was no real skill involved. First of all, top stitching on satin binding is not a look I generally like. Top stitching can look great on cotton, or if you want to use a contrast color, but if you can't manage to sew even a moderately straight line... You get the drift. It is a bit hard to see below, but the piece of boning on the edge goes all the way to the top of the binding, so I couldn't stitch through it, and didn't think to try to fake it with hand sewing.

I'm still stuck on the bias binding. Look at those lumps!

I was really trying to get this to look good here. That is why I am stretching the the binding with my fingers. Sadly, the only thing that makes this look good is very dim lighting.

The grommets- I think I mentioned above that I had never looked closely at a corset before making this one. I certain had never looked closely at a grommet, so I had no idea that the setter I had was setting them badly. Instead of making the neck bit curl back over itself, creating a lovely roll to hold the washer in place, this setter was just mashing the neck down onto the washer. It has held up over the years, but it just doesn't look at good as the ones I have that were properly set.

The Cut- This corset is too high cut for me, so it crushes rather than presents my assets. It should be cut at least an inch lower. Since the corset is now a bit big for me, I couldn't get a photo that showed this, but hopefully you will take my word for it.

Despite all of these flaws, I have gotten lots and lots of compliments on this corset. I have even been asked on multiple occasions if it was made by a local and famous corset company!

An early sewing triumph

There are a lot of things I really love about this corset.

First of all, there is the shape it gives me, such smooth, graceful curves. I think it makes my torso look longer, which I appreciate because I am pretty short waisted. The shape of the bottom edge and the hip coverage have kept this corset in my wardrobe for a decade. The curvy bottom is very eye catching and feminine. The fit was excellent. I have since made garments that fit better, but for a first try, without a mock-up, this one is as close to perfect as it gets. In the intervening years I have gained and lost 70+ pounds, and I was able to wear this corset uring a lot of that time. It didn't always fit perfectly, but it was at least as good a fit as many off the rack corsets you see around.

I think the fabric is so pretty. It is a heavy weight, asian inspired upholstery brocade that I found on clearance at Hancock Fabrics. I had been saving it for a while, trying to come up with the perfect project for it, and I think this was definitely a winner. It is just polyester and the hand isn’t great, but the pattern is right up my alley. I actually just found a leftover scrap of it over the weekend while going through boxes of fabric. I don’t know if it is enough to do much with, but I still love this fabric.

I’m glad I went out of my way to get the black grommets. Brass would have been so distracting against this fabric, and I don’t think silver would have been much better. I actually made my own satin bias tape for this project. I rarely do that and it was a nice finishing touch for the corset, but we can talk more about bias and grommets tomorrow.

I have taken detail shots of the corset and I am more than a bit nervous about posting them tomorrow. It is one thing to say “The corset isn’t perfect,” and quite another to show exactly what is wrong with close up photographs.