I love my underbust corset pattern, and I keep making it up. I also keep making up versions of it and not quite finishing them. For once though, this served me in good stead. Five Sew Weekly challenges ago I was sewing like mad, desperately trying to get everything made the four challenges I would miss while I was in Hawaii, where I wouldn’t much in the way of sewing accoutrements or internet access.
Other than being frantically busy, I had one massive problem: Mena hadn’t put the Sew Weekly challenges past the 8th of Sept up before I left, and I would get back Friday the 14th Sept, with the next, unknown, challenge due on Sunday night. Not a lot of time to sew, especially since I would kinda need to spend time with Mr D too!
So I took a deep breath, crossed my fingers, prayed, and tackled my UFO pile, hoping that I’d get something finished that would fit the challenge due on the 16th. After all, we’d had so many specific challenges in the recent past: yellow, and collars, and plaid (haven’t shown you that one yet because I don’t have good images). Surely Mena wouldn’t be mean enough to throw another challenge at us that required a very specific fabric or technique, right?
Well, the challenge the week of the 14th Sept was polka dots.
Ack! So specific!
And yet, amazingly, through the most fortuitously providential and serendipitous coincidence (try saying that five times fast!), the last thing I manage to finish in my last big rush of sewing was a polka dotted underbust corset for me that I’d got 90% done months ago. Just the thing. Hooray!
I really don’t know how I got so lucky. Not only did the corset perfectly fit the challenge, it’s also probably the only polka-dotted garment I have ever sewn in my entire sewing career. It even has polka dotted ribbons!
The other serendipitous thing about this corset? The photoshoot. It was madly rushed, poorly organised, not at all thought out, I didn’t go anywhere special, and it looks amazing! Thanks Shell! It’s so amazing I’ve just stuck a bunch of photos up in a gallery, so ya’ll can watch me be vain without having to scroll down.
Just the facts, Ma’am:
Fabric: .5 metre of red & white spotted cotton (inherited from Nana), .5 metre of linen interlining (thrifted for $1), .5 meter white lining (from stash).
Pattern: Mine own
Year: 2012
Notions: One steel busk (free) , plastic whalebone boning ($10), self-made piping, bias binding rescued off another item, corset lacing ($4).
And the insides? Picture perfect inside and out.
Hours: 5 (plus hundreds developing the pattern, but those don’t count, right?)
First worn?: Monday 17 Sep for the photoshoot
Wear again?: Not sure. It’s kinda cutesy for me.
Make again?: Well, of course!
Total cost: $15
Too cutesy for you? Paired up with black like this, I think it’s perfect!
Va-Va-VOOM!
I think that top photo is one of the best I’ve ever seen of you, and should be used on your business cards henceforth. 🙂
Wonderful photos, and a little darling of a corset!
It is cute, it has the same colours as a ladybug. But when I put hours in to sewing something and everyone just calls it “cute” it kind of annoys me, so your corset is cute but it is also beautiful, well fitted, and delightfully red and spotty.
About your poll question, does it include any other type of boned midsection squasher?
What a fun photoshoot! The corset is beautiful, and your hair is glorious 🙂
Thank you (on both counts!)
Your hair is positively glorious. The underbust corset looks marvelous – love the fun polka dots and the way you’ve paired it with black here!
This actually makes me think of grown-up Minnie Mouse, what with the black and the red and white dots! It looks wonderful!