Review/Tutorial: Prym Bias Binding Tool, Me-Made Corsetry Plus Some Sneaky Sewing Time

 Bear with me sewing people. This post is going to be quite long as it has some sewing with loads of pics plus a product review for a tool that I find to be one of the most useful that I own. Now to start off I was at the Studio yesterday and managed to sneak in a  little sewing time, in between moving furniture and mini-meetings.

Totally rocking shot  of Lois Wetherup by the awesome  Tom Farmer @ Glasgow Photographer, Knickers and fascinator by the super-taleneted Marie @ Amuse Bouche. Corset by me.

There is much going on at the moment, everything is in a state of flux, so loads to do.

Recognize this fabric? Yep, it is the leftovers from my Flea Market Fancy shirt. Nothing wasted in Kitty Towers.

More on that when it is all finalized. However despite all the too-ing and fro-ing I managed to complete the lining for the orange neck corset and make the outer and lining for a red one.

Lovely super thick silk, so many pieces.

The red one will match the corset above that I was commissioned to make for a Miss Scotland to be featured in a Christmas-themed shoot for The Sun newspaper a year or so ago. I am trying not to look at my wrinkly fabric. Nice fit though for only having the rough measurements.

I am going to use the two of these in the upcoming photo-shoot and am looking forward to getting them finished. I have to say that making a neck corset probably takes me as long as making a bigger one.

I always line in quilting cottons. They are so pretty and the cotton is nice to wear next to the skin.

My pattern has 12 pieces to cut out in the outer silk fabric, interfacing, corset coutil and then a lining. the shell is sewn up from the interfaced silk flat-lined to the coutil. The boning is sewn to the shell and the lining will be hand-stitched onto that to keep it in place. They don't lie flat as they are both shaped to be three-dimensional. Plus I will steam them into shape and leave them to cool down in the same way that you would do a coat collar.

Once that is done I will  tidy up the edges and cover them with bias binding, sandwiching all the layers together and unpicking the holding stitches. This is where one of my favorite wee gadgets comes in - my Prym bias binding tool.

NB.To be fair I also have ones from Clover and they are equally as useful but this is the one I will always reach for first as I like the little handle and the size.

One of my favourite tools, ever!

The tools are simplicity itself to use and they come with pretty good instructions but here is my method.

Here are my bias strips. I have ironed them flat. Look how the grain is on the diagonal. That is the bias and will allow it to curve round edges easily.

You will want to cut out strips ON THE BIAS that are twice the width as stated on the tool e.g for a 12mm tool cut 24mm, for an 18mm tool cut 36mm, etc. If I am using silk (as I am here) I cut out 40mm strips instead of 36mm just because they will shrink widthways when you pull them through the maker. You won't need to do this with a thicker fabric like cotton.

Plus you need to be quite accurate in your cutting or your will get wonky binding.

The back of the tool. Right side of fabric facing this way.

An easy way to get your first cutting line is to fold over one end of your fabric so that the selvedge is at 90 degrees to the selvedge on the other side to form a right-angled triangle. Give this an iron and, hey-ho, your cutting line. The pointy ends of your strips make it easy to push through the maker but if they don't you can pull it through gently with a pin.

To make your binding you will need to push your fabric through the tool with the right side facing downwards. The fabric will be folded round as it goes through to create the little flaps on the back of the bias as illustrated below.

Please ignore the stray thread. Never noticed that one when I was taking the pic.

It helps to secure the end of your strip to your ironing board with a pin so that you can pull against it gently when you are ironing. Use loads of steam (test your fabric first) and keep the point of the iron quite close to where the binding comes out. you should then end up with beautiful "single-fold" flat binding that you can either use as is or iron over double to create "double-fold" tape.

Easy peasy! Now you have no excuse for finding matching binding, plus the design options are endless. I really recommend buying one of these if you use binding at all. They come in lots of widths too and are only about £7 or £8 depending on size & brand.

Apologies for the wonky photo editing and hopefully will have a few more things to show next week.
Take care,  lovelies!
Kxx

P.S. I won a sewing pattern  giveaway from the brilliant "Pendle Stitches" blog so will be making a much needed bag at some point. Huge thanks for the pattern. Am chuffed to bits. xx


Disclaimer: The views above are totally my own and this is definitely not a sponsored post.

Sewing for Newcastle Fashion Week

Well this weekend was a bit hectic. Lots of sewing going on. However, this will be a short post as I can't show you anything.....yet that is.

I made a little waist-cincher and some other random bits of sewing. It is really tiny, about 20 inches closed but it is for Newcastle Fashion Week. As you know, some of us at F6 Studios are collaborating for Fashion Front Row, the "young designers" showcase (I feel it may be stretching the definition a bit with me) but it is looking good. FFR is on Wednesday night and I will post pictures as soon as I have them but I am sworn to secrecy until then. I do have to say that everyone has worked so hard and produced the most amazing things. I am so proud of them. I will do a proper post about all the things and the designers after the event.

We have all been sat in the sewing room working together and it has been really invigorating to spend time with such creative people. I am really missing my sewing machine now.

Image totally stolen from the NFW Facebook page... Oops :) But hey, it is advertising, right?

If you are in the Newcastle area you should pop along to some of the events which are running from the 9th May until the 17th. If you are interested in seeing the program you can click here. Newcastle is a pretty stylish city. People really make an effort when they go out (even if it is a bit OTT with the fake tan sometimes) and take clothes fairly seriously. There are some great colleges and universities in the area too with a very high standard of work from the students.

Anyway, I won't rant on and will post some pics as soon as I have them.

Hope the sun shines on your week!

K xx

Grumpy and Umpty

The last couple of weeks I have been a bit tired and had a lot on at work, so today I am feeling a little bit cross for no real reason. I even ripped down the scarf I had knitted up over the weekend and it was almost done too. Grump, grump, grump!

Don't worry love, I am sure that the Sisters of Mercy will reform.

I managed to get in a quick trip to Knit and Stitch in the Colliergate in York on Friday where I bought a lovely pattern book for Louisa Harding Yarns called "Fade to Grey". Cue 80's soundtrack, and indeed the patterns do have a bit of a romantic, gothic feel. I was particularly taken by the lovely purple wrap on the front.


I also had time to pop round the corner to Ramshambles and bought a couple of balls of wool to knit up a couple of the neck warmers that I knitted for Sprog before Christmas. The pattern for these is so nice and it is free! My favourite kind of pattern. You can find it on the ""In the Loop" blog. The original pattern is in French but if you scroll down you can download it in English too. Several people at work have knitted these and get compliments every time they were them and people are always asking Sprog where she got her's from. It is knitted on 60cm/5mm circular needles and takes about 150m/100g of wool in an Aran weight so it is nice for using up odd balls and makes for a cheap knit.

I bought myself some Aire Valley Aran from West Yorkshire Spinners in a russet/blue grey variegated colourway shade 862"Autumn Mix". I also bought a ball of King Cole Riot Chunky in shade 650- a lovely mix of blues and grey that will suit Sprog down to the ground.

This is such lovely wool. Hope Sprogzilla likes it.

In case you are of a certain age and think that this post title seems vaguely familiar I will leave you with a short video from The Flumps, a fixture of my childhood lunchtime TV consumption when I came home from school for lunch. Because today I am also under a cloud.