Saturday, January 23, 2010

See, I promised it would be green!

My latest project is done. Actually, it has been done for several days but I have been fighting against such abysmal weather conditions that taking photos has been impossible.
The fabric store I work at was selling off these old vendor samples of embellished taffeta and I snatched up three of them, a deep burgundy, a chocolate brown, and this lovely olive green color. They are all embellished in this charming cream and brown braid work with tiny holographic sequins (it reminds my husband of fancy braid-trimmed Spanish jackets, hence the name). The samples are little, though, maybe 14 or 15 inches tall and about 30 inches wide. Figuring our what to do with such a limited amount of fabric was a bit of a challenge!
This style of corset worked out well because it's made from a single piece. I was also lucky because I happened to find a plain taffeta in a perfectly matching olive green for the binding (the brown and burgundy, I'm afraid, were not as lucky).
Man-made taffeta is terrible to work with. There could be a whole post here devoted to the steps I had to take just to put the grommets in down the back of this corset. I was pretty thankful when it was complete. There aren't any pictures of the back yet, though, because I want to replace the lacing I made for it with a ribbon in a complimentary color first. That is my shopping chore for tomorrow!
I lined this corset in a cotton twill printed with scenes of Chinese riders and deer and love the way it looks on the inside even more than the outside! Click through to my Flikr page to see a shot of the lining, including the novel stitch arrangement I invented for the stays.

No comments: