Corset Vest

Hi my dears,

this weekend, I finished sewing something I've been looking forward to for ages. I started making it two weeks ago, but then didn't have the time to finish it immediately (you see, I can only sew on weekends, and not even every one), but impatient as I am, I was bursting to finally complete it!

As you might know, I love corsets. And I love vests. I think both of them go quite well with Lolita and other styles I admire. So why not combine the two? 

I've seen corset vests before here and there, so I decided to make my own version. It's quite short, so I can wear it with Lolita too. I first thought about making an underbust cut, but this is not very flattering for me, so I went for a more classical vest cut.

I only had to buy the busk (clasp? I'm not sure what it's called in English), the rest I had all in my fabric stock. The dark brown fake leather has been lying around literally for ages, it was too small for a real garment, but too big to throw away. The sand coloured fabric is actually a polyester fabric, but it looks like suede leather. I got it out of a jacket my grandmother gave me, she didn't use it anymore and asked me if I wanted it, so I was glad to take it (^.^). The lace finally is another leftover from a jsk.

I used golden eyelets to match the busk. The ribbon was white originally, so I dyed it with black tea. Like this, the contrast is less harsh. It's not the exact same shade of brown as the rest, probably if I had dyed it with coffee, the result would have been better, but I think it's not too bad like this.

I wanted to make something special for the lining and ended up liking it almost more than the outside (^.^). Normally, I just take a plain cotton fabric for the inside, like IKEA-Bomull, it's cheap and nobody sees it anyways. But some of you might be familiar with the expression Innenschön (an invention by Natron I believe?), and I had these cute pink patchwork fabrics lying around.

And to prove that it goes with Lolita (and because I had the dress and the petticoat with me):