Corset building with Chase & Status!

When the boyf goes away I tend not to watch any of the TV we watch together and we can have a big catch up sesh once he's back; and as there's not much else worth watching out there (we're not reality TV, talent show, MTV or sports fans!) it leaves me with time to sew.  

Last night, after I'd made Mrs B's bday card (more Saturday pm) and got the little misses settled, I decided to get on with the corset and tackle the boning and eyelet trim.  Buoyed by a glass of wine and the "new" Chase & Status album, which very belatedly I am listening to in it's entirety and loving, I decided to free-style slightly and just sew, rather than study the instructions lots!   My corset building bible mentions most methods of boning, but none that show the casing on the exterior, and in addition to this I wanted to use the casing to stitch all three layers together.  Careful pining and stitching soon had the casings on and the bones in. 

I then had to revert back to bible for the eyelet trim... having realised in a small moment of panic that I'd read somewhere about putting it on before boning the corset.  Luckily, however, this is the preferred attachment for corsets that will need to be "hard-wearing"; I doubt that mine will ever qualify as such and so used option b, which involves sewing the layers together, trimming them and folding the bone cased of the eyelet trim over the edge and stitching in place.  It also "the neater finish", which glosses nicely over my possible error!  I decided to use eyelet tape with a double bone casing (one either side of the run of eyelets) for the added stability and neater look; it will match my external casings better.  Stitching it was slow going as the stitch line had to be within 1mm of the edge to fit the bone in.  I did also restitch the line, just for the added strength. 

And that's essentially it done, I trimmed the top and bottom seams and am now in the process of pinning and handstitching on my grosgrain ribbon binding...  all of which will be done to the fantastic musical whirlwind that is No More Idols, rarely does an album sound this good :o)