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.

The Blog That Time Forgot

Ok, well if there were prizes for most neglected blog I would definitely be a contender. As it stands it has been almost 2 years (2 YEARS!) since I last updated this blog. That is bad, even by my standards. My old PC died, taking all my sewing pics along with it which I didn't back up and although I bought an iPad, I am less than impressed with it for doing anything other than emails. So now I have a new PC I have decided to be a bit more disciplined in keeping this up to date and maybe even posting some tutorials now and again.

So what have I been up to since then? Lots and lots really. Day job is still in Newcastle (at the moment anyway). Have blagged some brilliant studio space in Newcastle City Centre, where I can keep my enormous fabric stash without needing an extension and have sewn my way through two NE1's Newcastle Fashion Weeks, which were the most hectic and fun thing to do. The stuff they have on is fab-u-lous.

I worked with Mel from Le Hat Noir again for the 2012 catwalk show. Her hats were amazing. My favourite was this orange silk one show below. The pink and yellow corsets were from this year's show. I made more stuff than I needed so I have some lovely girdles made from the Jill Salen "Vintage Lingerie" book I talked about in the last post. I don't have any photos of them though.



Some corsets I made for Newcastle Fashion Week. Photo Credit: NFW (orange) and Peter Reed.

Currently, I have my Bad Kitty hat on and am working on a set of four corsets for a shoot sometime in October. They are roughly inspired by the work of Alphonse Mucha, especially the "Gemstones" painting. I am in the middle of making matching neck corsets. I have made one before but I don't think it was a resounding success comfort-wise. I draped this one on a polystyrene head to get the size right (about an 8-10), but as it laces up the back it should be OK. This is prototype B, with hand painted lace and 5 different colours of Swarovski crystals. The others should be fairly similar although I was also thinking of adding in some Steampunk-style boot covers.



Pink Silk Neck Corset with Hand-Painted Lace and Swarovski Crystals (work in progress). I hope that this is a bit more comfy. Boy,does it need a press and the boning put in though.



I bought Simplicity 9553 after being inspired by Peter from Male Pattern Boldness's post on ugly patterns on Pinterest. I love this. Must be my bad taste but I want some for me. To be honest, I also have some of the other patterns from there too. Don't know what that says about my taste, style-wise but people used to raid my wardrobe when we had "Bad Taste" parties so that should tell me something I suppose.

I bought some very practical *ahem* white silk velvet to dye from Edinburgh Fabrics. Probably to go with the red corset that I have made. The two bag patterns that are included are really nice too. This pattern is from 1971 and I do have a bit of a soft spot for late 60's - 70's clothing.  This kind of swims against the tide for all things 50's and "Mad Men"-inspired which I have never ever seen. Too little time to be watching TV!

So lots of sewing to do this week. Watch this space!!