Back to the Doll Corsets

I rather reached a stopping point with the piece I was doing for the Slough Museum Project. But now that the deadline is nearing, I just decided to get a start and see what happens.

One of the problems was that I had sprayed walnut ink on the lutrador base I was using. I thought it would give it a more aged look. then I left it to dry. I blotted the excess with a piece of white muslin. But, even after some weeks, it hadn't actually dried. If you touched it, it rubbed off on your hands.

So, I gave up eventually and ran it through a rinse in the washing machine. (I wasn't sure what even a quick wash would do to the lutrador.
here it is laying in the tree to photograph because I didn't want it to get on anything else in the house!)

The plus side of washing it was that it was at least more of an off white than a pure white, which suited me better. The white muslin was still stained after the rinse, too. It basically looked dirty not aged.

So, that was where I left it for sometime. Although I had ordered a range of natural/skin coloured viscose rayon embroidery threads.

At last I thought I better get on with it. I had meant to use white muslin to stitch through, but now hadn't enough of it. I did have enough cream muslin and found that would suit. And having decided that, I proceeded to tear strips and make patches to cover the lutrador. The lutrador could just be more like a support for the inside. It is still more of a fragile feel than interfacing would have been used in the same way. I also realised the stained white muslin wasn't as bad as I thought and would make a good backing.

And so now I am listening to audio books and doing the stitching. I like the raw edges of the patches peeking through the stitching. I may still add some frayed strips like I did with my sample, but I will see what it looks like when it is all stitched.

I had thought to use sticks through the 'boning' channels to make it into a 3D piece, but since there is already alot of 3D work being done, I may go ahead and make it to hang on the wall. I will see what it looks like.