Something more than mere survival — Better binder project proof of concept: Before...

1.5M ratings
277k ratings

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna

Better binder project proof of concept: Before leaping into the construction of a previously unknown and very fussy new garment, I thought about what might reasonably be done by someone with rudimentary skills at home. 

So I took a sports bra I had lying around at home, sewed boning channels in it, and stuck in some steel corset bones I’ve had in my stash for almost a decade. It was a modest success!

Thoughts:

  • The most exciting thing is proof that YES, if you add rigid vertical supports to a chest garment, you can visibly flatten the breast tissue without causing a great deal of discomfort or requiring space-age technologies. This is something people could do at home with $10 of equipment and an old bra. A tutorial for people new to sewing might be a good idea.
  • This bra has a lot of stretch in the fabric and honestly it’s kind of exciting that I could get good compression with it, because it means this is a way to make BINDERS that stretch and accommodate breath a good deal more than previously, while still achieving a flattening effect
  • I tried using flimsy plastic boning and it had NO effect, so I moved up to the steel. The steel bones are still very bendy, partly because they’re intended for a garment twice as tall. I actually think the ideal boning material for this would be, I shit you not, heavy-duty plastic cable ties.
  • This is half as many boning channels as I’m comfortable with. I think that if I added an extra channel in every gap between, and put another channel on the side, I’d get much more of a flattening effect.
  • I hand-sewed four channels this morning before a) getting a strain in my wrist, and b) realizing I’d put them in wrong and ripping them all out. It took about three hours. That means the amount of boning I want would take 10-15 hours to for me to handsew. Using a sewing machine would at least cut that time in half.
  • There didn’t seem to be much benefit for bringing the boning channels up past the collarbone. Actually, it seemed to encourage the bone to bend more. 
  • The bones made the garment hard to pull on and off over the head, because the whole flat surface had to be flipped up at once. It would be a LOT easier to use a bra that zipped open, but it’s tough to find a sports bra that’s just plain fabric, no formed cups, AND has a band closure.
  • The bottom band of the bra was very snug to start with, which made it harder to achieve a flat look because it was INSISTENT that it wanted to LIFT. I think it might be better to get a bra that feels a little bit loose around the band, which both allows the breast tissue to expand downwards, AND helps make it easier to pull on when it’s fully boned.
  • PLEASE LET ME KNOW if you want to try sewing something like this yourself–I’m happy to help people learn their way around a needle, and very eager to hear other peoples’ thoughts, results, and experiences.
staranise original building a better binder

See more posts like this on Tumblr

#staranise original #building a better binder