corsets bite.....

into your squishy bits that is. And also, they bite in the more colloquial sense. Mine is annoying the squish out of me. There's a fundamental thing about my corset that I don't like, which is that while it's comfortable over the shift, it's bloody uncomfortable once a dress gets put on over it. I think that this is because the dress drags down on the tabs at the bottom and sticks all the weight of the skirts onto the hips, which gets painful in a hurry. I think too, that part of the problem is that my old dress has shoulder straps that are too long, so they don't take enough of the weight. Or any, perhaps. However, I have this theory that if I add straps to the corset, then no matter how badly designed the next dress might be, it won't matter. So here's the thing....modern supportive garments work with the magic of elastic. Wide-set straps with no stretch to them exist solely to fall off of one's shoulders. This is what I discovered after painstakingly handsewing on straps, wriggling around trying to lace stuff in the mirror, adjusting the straps, wriggling around again, adjusting....etc etc etc.

Clearly I can't use elastic, nor criss-crossing straps a la the last bridesmaid dress I, um, altered, to, um, make myself not have to go berserk in the church. So my plan is to cut them on the bias in the hope of getting a little stretchiness and to make then enormously wide and curved under the arms. In other words, to turn the bloody thing into a standard renfest wench bodice. If I don't get distracted by something, perhaps I'll work on that tonight.