Since I have no time to actually organize by sewing area, I'm willing to trade for it to get done. Anyone local to Boston interested in getting a corset in exchange for getting my basement studio in working order?

I have lots of bins and stuff and can buy more. The fabric needs to get sorted, tools and notions all put in places that they can live in. Shelves put up. That kind of thing. It's not a small job and I really need a space that I can work in. My estimate is around 20 hours of work.

-Jim

I'm going to drive up to Portland sometime today to do a fitting for a wedding corset/dress. Firm plans are not done yet but if there were peeps on the way, Portsmouth, or Portland proper that wanted to get together I would be up for making it work.

Let me know!

Here are a couple of teaser shots of the hat as well as a couple of full body shots; links to full size. I will eventually get the whole set up on my site. The hat is black and white satin with a grosgrain ribbon band, veiling, silver and black flower, and beaded hat pin. The hat is constructed on a custom buckram frame with a wired brim. The corset is made of black and white satin coutil.

Photography by Alisa Lemberg. Hat and Corset by CuriousCouture

I just finished up with the measurement session for Molly Heartbreaker She is a model and dancer from RI. Her OMP profile is here. Both links are totally NSFW. The work is in exchange for pics for the site as well as being a walking billboard for CC at the Flea as well as other conventions. I feel like such a fashion pusher...come on just one little taste ;) It was a really good thing that I gave Scott over at BigHeadStudio a card *yay*

The design is coming together quite well. It's going to be an underbust in all black w/ pinstripes. The straps are going to be men's bracers connected with buttons. There will be fake flap pockets at the bottom to give the corset a suit jacket look. I'm still deciding if I want to make a flap and button over the busk for a real suit look or not. I could just run a line of fake buttons up the busk. I'm going to make a pencil skirt to go with, it will be cut on the bias to make the pinstripes slant upwards and give the skirt a bit of stretch. It will be slit up the right side all the way to the hip. I will also be making pinstriped pasties with a button on the nipple point so that it can button into the suspenders. Hopefully this will mean that the pasties do not need to be glued on. Molly has a big back tattoo of a succubus (NSFW) that I want to make sure that 'her' face is peeking out over the back of the corset.

Here is the second set of corset photos from the last shoot by ragingamazon. water_childe was a fabulous model and the pics were wonderful. This corset was actually made by me last year and we finally got around to shooting it. It is made of this plasticized speaker grill material and bound off in plastic wire-harness material. It's really thick tubular crin material and a complete pain to work in :) I couldn't get the ends to look good but all in all it gives the corset a very cyber look. The fabric had a distinct color texture change on the back side so I alternated the panels to give a striped look. 1/4" flat steels were used beside the busk and on either side of the grommets. 1/2" spirals were used on each seam. The corset was made in two layers with a ulpostory satin lining. The Ankh was stiched on via a satin stitch on a modern zig-zag machine. I didn't have time to make a matching skirt this time.



( Cut for more pics... )

The rest of the photoshoot can be found starting here. There are three pages of pics that can be found by clicking on the picture buttons along the bottom.

It's been a while since I was able to organize a photoshoot for some of the corsets I have made; ragingamazon did a fabulous job behind the camera as usual. I just finished up cropping the first set of pics for the site. This first one is for a blue velvet underbust that I designed for ayalanya It was made from fabric that she supplied as well as two layers of coutil. There was a pair of 1/2" flat steel bones under the busk as well as 1/4" flat steel bones around the grommets. The rest of the corset is boned with 5/8" spiral steels.

I designed a skirt to go with, it is made of the same fabric and lined using a poly lining. The flower/vine pattern in the blue velvet was brought into the velvet flocked organza gore in the skirt. I drafted a standard pencil skirt and made a sweeping curve from the hip down to the mid calf for the gore. I wanted the gore to flare out A-line so I drafted the peice to be twice the size as the opening. In order to make this easier I pleated a peice of brown paper and layed the folded mockup on it and traced the outline of the gore. I cut on this line and opened up the pattern peice, the top edge was basically a sawtooth. This made it easy to cut the organza and then line back up the top edge for basting prior to inserting the gore. I also designed/created the choker to complete the outfit.



( Cut for more pictures... )

The complete set of photos can be found here. There are three pages of pics that can be accessed through the first three picture buttons on the bottom.

Here are some of the early edits of water_childe from the photoshoot with ragingamazon behind the camera. I pieced the set together from construction debris and I think that it really added a lot.

( Cut for DANGER! )

I need to go and edit more and update the site. I'll post some pics of me in my latest outfit soon. It's based on a bought women's tux jacket from the 60's. I made a matching skirt and corset.

Here are some early edits for the site. I'm going through and making some of the backgrounds black for use around the site. The main design catalog pages will just keep the backgrounds white.

( Cut for extreme beauty! )

I'll post a link to the site pages when the rest of the pics are up and I'll post more of water_childe soon!

Well, the photoshoot went really well with ragingamazon. I was able to get my new red and black corset done to get a few shots of me in it. ayalanya was photographed in the blue patterned velvet corset and matching skirt that I made her. I also made the lace choker to go with. water_childe was photographed in the metallic silver ankh corset that I made quite a while ago.

I put the set together for water_childe from construction debris that I found around the photo site. I'll post pics as I get them edited. The rest of the sets are permanent installations at the photostudio.

I still need to get new pics up at the site but I did update the intro page with a new picture. Let me know if it works well in your browser. The text shouldn't go over the pic much if at all when it is resized small.

I just finished up a corset for ayalanya. It is a blue, patterned velvet underbust using 14 panels. It has 3/8" sprial boning throughout, except for the busk (and .5mm thick underbusk) and the 1/4" flat steel (.6mm) bones by the grommets. It is underlined with a heavy denim twill and the lining is a fine brushed black cotton twill. Normally I draft to have a 2" gap but it seems her kidneys are a few inches inbound and the bones would have been going too close to them. I added a little bit to the draft and now it sit perfectly closed.

This is the second corset using the new welt seam construction. I am really really happy with the method. The interesting thing about the construction technique is the loss of approx 1/8" per seam due to the folding back. The upside is that if I draft to have it perfectly closed it will have a 2" gap. Making a three layer corset was no more work than two. When I was using the sandwhich method it was a lot more work and actually casued problems. Since each panel is completely finished before adding the next one, any slight variations b/w the outer fashion fabric and the lining can be trimmed up. Since I was using velvet this really helped since velvet will shift when the pile gets compressed under the foot. It's not much but if I was doing the lining and shell seperately before attaching it could be off by a 1/4"

I am now starting on drafting a matching skirt. I'm hoping to try and incorporate some 24" black fringe into the skirt. I have a few yards and I think that it will work without clashing with the existing pattern in the velvet.

( on to the pics! )

Hi All,

I just added an about page and was wondering if someone who can actually write would comment on it :)

I finally got CSS and Javascript beaten into submission and have the first cut at a site. There are quite a few pages missing but the first pics are up in the 'designs' page.

Are you curious?

I have only tested it on Firefox and IE6. If you see something weird on another browser, let me know.

I was up late last night putting together a bcard for curiouscouture.com

Here is the proof copy.

Now I just need to work on the site for Arisia and the Flea.

Now the world is ready for you,
and the wonders you can do...



( big version! )

Some of you may have been wondering where I was :) I just finished up a corset design for starkymonster. It is a WonderWoman dress made out of sparkle PVC.

( corset pics (big) and info )

It seems like I've been working double shifts at my day job for a few weeks and couldn't find the time to finish up my latest commission. It has a 20" waist when fully closed. As you can see from the back pic my dress form isn't small enough :) After putting the final touches on it, here are some pics:

( Pink silk dupioni overbust with gussets )