I had hoped to document the making of the first leather corset commission in detail but my camera stopped cooperating half way through! So here is a really quick overview and some pics of the finished corset.
This was my first foray into working with leather and it certainly was a learning curve. It felt like I had to rethink every step! When I got to doing the boning channels and stitching through a billion layers of leather and coutil I began to seriously worry for the health of my machine. I ended up doing the thickest seams on a friends industrial machine but the challenges didnt stop there. Anyway, lots of swearing later, with the help of binder clips, lots of tea and the growing callouses on my fingers we had a corset that I was pretty pleased with!
The stitching is in purple contrast thread with flossing at the end of the bones and purple cotton lining.
Main lessons learned:
- Yes it's obvious but a proper leather needle makes all the difference! (I had been worried about the cutting edge weakening the coutil layer)
- You can pin, just keep them in the seam lines and there will be no big holes left in your corset
- A walking foot will save you san points
- An industrial machine is really needed to make these in future if Im not to waste time worrying or getting a cramp in my hand from using the hand crank
- Even though I'm vegetarian ...there's just something about real leather!
