More Corsetry

I've spent the last few days working on my corset (and weaving chain maile - I finally figured out how to link the chains - YAY!!!) I started out with just the plain ol' corset, but I needed to have all kinds of leather straps running across it. For the leather straps, I originally started out with the leather that I made the corset out of, but there wasn't enough definition that way. So, I purchased a reddish vinyl. Yes, I know, VINYL. But, it was way cheaper than the leather version and it was actually a better color, too. I cut out a pattern with my giant grid paper, but cut it slightly bigger than the piece so that I could fold the vinyl under to get rid of the rough edges.


I am ashamed to say that I used a hot glue gun to fold the edges under, but I had no choice. The other glue takes FOREVER to dry, and sewing just looked awkward.


I then placed the pieces where I thought they belonged on the corset and glued them using SoBo Premium Craft and Fabric Glue. These had to glue overnight before I could do anything with them.

I had several silver pendants that I purchased from JoAnn Fabrics. Matt drilled out the centers, and I stitched them on using very thin leather thread. The silver square I had to hot glue on. (In the following picture, I hadn't yet glued or stitched anything on yet.)


I then started work on the back of the corset. The tan strips of vinyl have to go over the shoulders and then attach in the back and some of the straps have to attach from the back to the front, so I had to put the corset on the dressmaker's dummy in order to get everything to fit correctly. Some of the straps will attach using velcro. If I permanently attach the strips, I can't get the corset on. And if I use snaps or something, that won't work if I need to adjust the corset. Some of the straps are attached to each other using a belt buckle (one side is permanently attached, the other side will attach to itself with velcro.) I am ashamed to say that I again used the hot glue gun, only because it's so much faster and the other glue takes so long that the pieces would have slipped out of place. When I have everything attached correctly, I will lay it out on the table and reinforce every piece with the SoBo glue.

The last thing I worked on tonight was I took rivets and flattened the top part that attaches into the leather. I then glued (with hot glue - yes, it should work fine for this part) that onto the leather. This way, the rivets are in there without actually having been riveted. After the grommets, the thought of riveting together all the leather and vinyl just about made my head explode! Anyway, here's the front of the corset partially completed (not all the rivets are on yet - I ran out of hot glue!)


I'm still working on the chain maile for the top of the costume, but that's coming along pretty well. I had to purchase another 3 pounds of rings, so hopefully they'll be here in a few days and I can start making chains again. It's going REALLY fast now that I know what I'm doing. I got the entire front done during two episodes of Doctor Who (which means some of that time was spent watching and not weaving.)

Also, I still need to figure out what to do with that dratted collar. Maybe once the chain maile is in place I can more accurately gauge how big the collar needs to be.

It's not perfect, but it's pretty darn close!!! It also looks less cheap when it's not illuminated by a flash. I'm still working on the back, so I'm not going to upload those pictures quite yet. Here is the original again for comparison: