Progress on Frankencorset

I've been making quick work of the transitional stays, which makes me very happy! I spent my day off work drafting the new pattern, and while it took a while because there are so few angles of the original stays (and no views of the sides!), I was able to come up with a satisfactory pattern. It had been so long since I had drafted a basic body block that I had to start completely from scratch. I love the look of the in-progress drafting, it looks like I actually know what I'm doing. XD

It took about five or six hours of drafting, fiddling, and redrawing, but I finally got the pattern hammered out.

 

Of course, Pepper was a huge help keeping track of the supplies, as always.

 

I was thinking that I'd have to hold off on continuing until I could make it to the fabric store for some duck canvas and some sateen, but when I dug around in The Stash, I managed to find some duck that had been hiding away! So, I started cutting out the interlining.

The boning channels were a beast to transfer to the canvas. I don't have any transfer paper, so I cut little slits in each line, through which I drew dots onto the canvas, which I then connected with my yardstick. Talk about tedious! It worked really well, though, and now I have all my pieces cut out, and the boning channels drawn on and ready to be stitched over.

 

Now I just need to cut out the outer fabric and the lining, and I can start stitching. I didn't have any cotton sateen in my stash, but, I do work in retail, and we happened to have some 400 thread count cotton sateen pillow cases on clearance for $12! After my coupon and employee discount, I ended up paying $8. I bought the only set of white pillowcases, which will give me just over a yard of fabric. Not bad at all, and I don't have to make an extra trip to the fabric store. ^^ I'll start cutting out the outer fabric tomorrow, and hopefully will be well along on the stitching by the time the weekend hits. I'm so excited about these!

I'm also running a little experiment, seeing how cheaply I can make an entire outfit using materials I can find at work. The other day, I bought a set of twin-sized sheets in a light cream colour, with a burgundy floral print. This isn't my photo, but you can see the print pretty well in it.

It's microfibre, so boo, but the print is cute and the fabric is soft, so yay. They were also on sale for $11.99, and I had a $10 off $10 coupon, and after my employee discount I ended up paying a whopping $1.50 for the set. I got a flat sheet, a fitted sheet, and a pillowcase, so I should be able to wrangle a pretty respectable dress out of it.

There's also the perfect pair of Regency style flats in the accessories department, also on sale for $11.99, and wouldn't you know? I have another $10 off $10 coupon! :D Between those two things and the pillowcases, this is going to end up being a pretty cheap outfit overall. I've dubbed it the JCP Regency Experiment. I'll let you all know the results.

In other news, I should have my domain back in just a few days! I've missed my domain, but once the auction period runs out, I'll be able to purchase it again, and will be back to my old self in no time.

I'm also putting together a "Five Foundations" challenge for 2014, focused on creating foundation garments such as stays, petticoats, shifts, etc. More details about it, and how to play along, in an upcoming post. :)