donderdag 9 april 2015

Week 12: Shaping up nicely

Hi everyone,

The first news is dubious; the tingly feeling has left my legs and reappeared in my right arm after wearing the corset for a few hours...

The rest of the week went good. My body is shaping up nicely as I'm picking up on my exercises. A friend introduced me to the 30-day-shred programme I just might use two months before the wedding.

I've been sewing again! My chemise wants for two buttons before it is officially finished and my crinoline is half-done.
To top it all off; Jenni Hampshire of Sparklewren has been so bloody awesome!!! * Thank you so much!!! * She already has my corset finished and ready to post!!! So I don't have to worry about having to make my own bridal corset anymore, which would take me about a month. I'm back on schedule now, somewhat belated, but I still should be able to manage to get all clothing done before the wedding. If not, my bridesmaids have offered to help. You ladies rock!!! Love you, love you, love you!!!

This week I'm still keeping steady; natural waist 92 cm, corsetted waist 81 cm.

To view my vlog (interrupted by my dad :P ), click here. 

Week 11: Sneak preview!

This is the best post yet as I have such a treat for you guys!
I dug up the mock-up sent by Sparklewren so I could fit it properly and send her the pictures to make sure the fit was right. The corset is totally awesome and the fit is gorgeous, so I will share some of these pictures with you guys as a sort of sneak-preview of my wedding silhouette! I laced down gradually, starting at a comfortable 79 cm (:P) and laced up to a tightness I think I would be able to keep up for an entire day: 73 cm!!!



The exercises I've been doing are paying off and are doing wonders for my legs!

It's also good to stimulate my bloodflow as I'm experiencing a strange tingling in my legs sometimes. But here's the mystery; I also experienced this on the day I was not wearing my corset... I don't know what that is all about, but we'll keep exercising!

And the last piece of news is that I've actually started working on my bridal outfit!
I've cut out the patterns of crinoline, petticoat, bloomers and chemise. I only need to make a mock-up of the bloomers as I don't really trust that pattern yet. I'll keep you posted.

To finish; my natural waist on taping day is 92 cm (I'm back!) and my corsetted waist is still 81 cm! It's been a brilliant week!

To view my vlog, click here. 




Week 10: Back on track

After three weeks of illness, this was my first week lacing again. During this week I had to quit my corset for three days because of 'shark week' (I read it online and find it so funny I'm going to stick with it). Nevertheless I'm back on track with my lacing capacities!

I was right on my legs getting bulgy (possibly) because the corset forces the fat downwards, so I've taken up exercising to get them (and the rest of me) into an elegant shape.

My natural waist this week is 94 cm, but my corsetted waist is down to 81! Laced down a whole centimeter!!!

View my vlog here.

Week 9: After a break of 3 weeks...

Hi all,

I'm sorry I've kept you hanging like this.
I know I haven't taken the time to post anything in a while, and to make matters worse, I also haven't been taping nor lacing for 3 weeks. I was feeling poorly for so long, I didn't wear the corset for 3 weeks and so I made quite a lapse and had to start again from scratch.

But now I'm back on my feet and lacing again. Today is the first time I'm actually taking time to edit the films I've been taping and to finally share them with you guys.

So here is my report on my situation after 3 weeks of illness and starting to lace again, slowly. Previous to my illness, I had been lacing even tighter than normal attempting to actually start lacing down more than usual. The day I left my corset at home, was to do a loveshoot in a park, and the first day I was experiencing a banging headache. Look at my uncorsetted waist the day before I should have been taping!


I wanted to postpone taping day until I felt better, but for 3 weeks I didn't... This brought my natural waist at a set back to 94 cm.
Luckily I got back in shape rather quickly, to my great surprise and delight. The first time I felt well enough to start again, my corsetted waist laced down to 82 cm!

Watch my vlog by clicking here.

dinsdag 24 februari 2015

Week 8: thighs and corsets

This week I had my period so I took a few days off. But before this week something happened that I also experienced about a month ago; a mysterious pressure building up in my thighs.
I think this is caused by the corset pushing fat down into my hips and thighs. I can't be sure though as I haven't been focusing on the circumference of my thighs.

This made me think of an invention the old lady told about, the same one who told about corset wear and the female cycle. She said that women sometimes wore bands around their thighs to give them a nice round shape. These leg 'corsets' for lack of a better word, are strips of fabric, about 6-7 cm wide and all laced together to cover the entire upperleg. At the top they would be gathered with some lace or elastic band, not so tight as it would close of any bloodflow! This would give a nice brim at the top of the leg, also accentuating the bum.
She also saw these things displayed at the museum of Empress Elizabeth in Viena, but there they were displayed as 'legwarmers'...

She did wear them herself for a while in preparation of her wedding, but as she didn't like wearing them. Her husband was very happy with the result however. As the leg corsets shaped her thighs in a round shape and pushed fat up (leaving a narrow line between leg and bum), the corset pushed fat down, leaving her with a huge bum.
I haven't been able to find pictures of these leg corsets, but that's probably because I don't know what they're actually called.

Although I think the fat that is being redistributed by my corset is trying to settle on my thighs, I won't be wearing leg corsets myself. I think tight jeans ought to help me enough to keep them in shape.

My measurements are stabilizing: natural waist 92 cm again, and corseted waist 82 cm again.
I know waisttraining is a slow process and it takes time for the body to get into new shapes, but I hope I will start with actually lacing down very soon. Let's hope this stabilizing is a good omen before I can start lacing down.

For my video-blog, click here.

maandag 23 februari 2015

Week 7: Bra-talk

Apologies for the delay. I taped my blog (almost) on time, but I didn't have time to edit it until yesterday evening. That's why I'm posting it now.

As you know sometimes I skip wearing my corset and on those days I'm back to wearing a bra. Now that I don't wear them anymore on a daily basis, it was becoming quite obvious how uncomfortable a bra is compared to wearing a corset! This might shock some of you, but it's actually true!

A corset gives pressure in your waist and about 15 cm above and below your waistline. There is hardly any pressure at your bustline, while your bust is still supported sufficiently (if you're wearing a halfbust or overbust corset). A bra however has all these elastic bands, sometimes even so tight they leave red markings on your skin. Because the elastic band is so narrow around your chest, it's really awkward to notice how uncomfortable that is, in comparison to the (in that area) much looser fitting corset.

Just something about how to wear a corset; normally when you wear a corset that covers half or the whole of your bust, you don't wear a bra underneath. The elastic, boning and underwires of a bra usually already dig into the skin and if they are covered by a corset, they get pushed into your body even more, possibly even leaving you with bruises in the places where the bones meet up.
If you have an underbust corset, you could wear a bra, but sometimes the boning and underwire get into conflict, depending on the length of your corset.

You should however always wear a shirt or some kind of cotton underneath your corset to keep it fresh. The shirt will absorb your body oils and sweat (or most of it anyway). Generally you don't want to risk washing a corset with steel boning as it is expensive and you don't want it to start rusting. However, the shirt you can wash. A corset you can air out in the evening by hanging it inside out. Also dabbing the inside with a damp cloth, some laundry water or wodka will keep it clean and odourless.

My measurements are starting to get stable; natural waist 92 cm, corsetted waist 82 cm.

Click here to see my videoblog entry of this week.

zondag 8 februari 2015

Week 6; ill...

This was the third week in which I'm feeling poorly so I decided to hang the corset and just slouch on the couch. This is rather impossible to do comfortably while wearing a corset as this keeps you upright and straight. Especially with my halfbust! So I skipped quite a few days this week. And with the setback of last week I didn't know what to expect from my measurements when I put on my corset again this morning for the first time in, what is for me, quite a while.

My natural waist was now 92 cm and my corsetted waist again 83 cm. That is a decrease of one cm on my natural waist.

Because the first month of waisstraining is behind me, I've made a compilation of my progress with pictures below. You can also admire this in the video; click here.







zaterdag 7 februari 2015

Start Week 5: comparing types of boning

I have to apologize for posting this message so late. I've filmed it on time, but as I was feeling poorly for three weeks now, it took a while before I took the time to edit and post is. But now I have, so here comes my report of last week!

Overall I've been a good girl and only skipped wearing the corset for a couple of days. 
This week I read an article about the benefits of artificial whaleboning and how this succesfully creates an authentic Victorian corsetshape where steel boning fails to do so. This article contained an example by my favourite costume historian Luca Costiglio: Click here for the film by Bowes Museum. So needless to say, I was immediately convinced and ordered 50 metres of it from England for my bridal corset and other experiments.

As it arrived I felt inspired to do some comparing with different types of boning. In this film I compared:
  • plastic boning (1 cm) with steel boning (1 cm), 
  • plastic boning (0,7 mm) with steel boning (0,5 cm),
  • artificial whalebone (white) with plastic boning of the same width but transparent,
  • actual whalebone to all the others mentioned above.  
  • Oh, and rigilene, but never mind that!
In the end the steel boning is of course more rigid than the flexible plastic ones, however it needs to be said that the 0,7 mm plastic boning does not kink! 
The strength of the whalebone is balanced between the slightly more flexible narrow artificial whalebone and the plastic 0,7 mm bone which is slightly less flexible. I forgot to compare it to the spiral boning, but I think the stiffness is similar to that. 

This made me decide to make 2 mockups of my bridal corset; one with artificial whalebone and one with the 0,7 mm plastic bone, if I can find it... Maybe mixed with the spiral boning. 

Unfortunately my waist was back to square one... I had measured my natural waist that morning; 93 cm, and that evening my corsetted waist came down to 83 cm. Back to where I started; bummer! I think it might be some weird monthly thing having something to do with the cycle of my body. But we'll see. Still many months to go, one down. 

zaterdag 24 januari 2015

Week 4: Dealing with the monthly cycle

This has been such a strange (and long) week for me.

Let me start at the beginning. One of the things that I really love about the corset is that I don't eat as much candy as I normally would. Not wearing a corset, I usually eat all day through, just because I'm bored or tired or something. But when I'm wearing a corset, I become aware of the fact that I'm not at all hungry much quicker than without.
There's this one evening in which I hadn't eaten anything after dinner and I felt really proud of myself! Even the next morning I still felt thin so I intended to wear the corset much tighter that day. However, during the course of the morning I didn't feel that great in my tighter corset and as I climbed upstairs to my room, I seriously got out of breath. One staircase! And I was just panting away and trying to support my upper body... I knew what was wrong, so I loosened my laces back to a comfy tightness, but I was baffled by the concept that I could loose my breath in a too tight corset! I don't think I would have feinted though, but still. It was a weird experience.

One day I skipped wearing my corset. One became two days and I knew that the third successive day would be the first day of my menstrual cycle. I've laced before and quickly experienced that the pains in my belly get a lot worse while wearing a corset, so in the end I didn't wear my corset for 3 successive day. This was also the day on which I should report my blog, so I postponed that, and my bloggingday alltogether, for 2 days so there would be something to measure again. I must say that halfway the third day I really missed the embrace of my corset as I walked...

Now my fiancee told me this amazing story from one of his students. She's really old and had been lacing since she was 10 years old. What she told him about wearing corsets (and some other facts from her mother's and grandmother's experiences) I've never come across before. I guess nobody has ever bothered to write this information down before, apparently, but to me it is invaluable. So here it is; She was told to stop lacing her corset 2 days before her monthly cycle for a total of 5 days. Unless if you were tightlacing and hadn't reached your desired stable figure yet. In that case you should stop lacing for 3 days; after your first day of menstruation, you could start lacing again.
So as of now, that's what I intend to do!
She also told him that it somehow regulated her cycle. When she stopped wearing her corset alltogether, her cycle became chaotic and had to find a new rythm of it's own. I hope that will work for me as well, but then again, I'm not lacing from the age of 10...

When I my corset back on yesterday I experienced the same thing I had discovered the other time when I had skipped lacing; how incredibly easy is was to lace myself very tight again! Effortlessly. How remarkable is that?!?

When lacing this morning my natural waist was 90 cm again (but what can you expect after 3 days not lacing and my body keeping in all this water because of my cycle) and my corsetted waist... wait for it... 81 cm!!!!!! It's finally decreasing!

Click here to view my vlog: week 4.

zaterdag 17 januari 2015

Week 3: Progress!

After two weeks of lacing I've finally discovered some measurable difference!!!
The measurements might have been a little bit compromised as I measured my natural waist in the morning but my corsetted waist at night.
I didn't have time in the morning to film for my vlog so I only took the one measurement. My corset probably got a little looser over the course of the day, so my corsetted measurements might not be as accurate as I would want it, being measured before I took it off at the end of the day...

This past week I've skipped wearing my corset for 1,5 days, but to compensate for that, I've laced in real tight for a ball. I was surprised how easy this was! In my first week there was definitely some resistance while lacing myself in, but now I could just lace myself tight with very little effort.
In line with this discovery is the experience of my upper body slimming down. The upper part of the corset feels almost loose now and I notice no fat anymore on my ribcage :D
My belly has also noticeably moved down. It's sitting in a whole new place now. I hope this will get lost as well as my appetite is now contained by the corset.

My natural waist is now 89 cm (a steady decrease!). My corsetted waist was 83 cm yet again, but this measurement might be slightly off...
And I'm contemplating on seriously improving my vlogging skills :P Any tips?

1. better sound
2. ...

For my vlogpost of this week, click here.

vrijdag 9 januari 2015

Week 2

This past week I've worn my corset every day but one, when I was a bit under the weather.

During this week I've noticed that the fat on my back has moved elsewhere and my waist feels slightly more elegant without it. So I like that result of my first corseted week!

My measurements however are not so noticeably different from my starting measurements... 
My natural waist is 90 cm (one down) and my corseted waist is 83 cm (again). 

Last week I've been lacing snug and comfortable, but this week I'm going to pull the laces a little tighter.