New Year, New Hosiery

For a while now, I have been following a company called What Katie Did and I absolutely love them. They are based in London and they specialize in shapewear and hosiery of a vintage nature. Everything looks so wonderful and classic and I have been looking more into shapewear recently to go under my dresses and whatnot. Not all of my clothes are vintage-y, but who doesn't feel awesome wearing something special, amiright?

I have been watching more Dita Von Teese interviews lately and on one of them she says "Everything has to look like you didn't try; like you just are. The lingerie is one of those things. That's why you must wear it everyday and enjoy it and wear things that fit you. You didn't put it on for him. You're already wearing it and he's lucky he's there and he gets to experience that." I just love that. Plus what a daily confidence boost! I will admit that about half the week I am in jeans and a t-shirt, but during the other half its dresses or skirts. So I gathered up all the few items I have as far as bustiers and garter belts and bodysuits and I will be trying to incorporate them more into my daily wear.

Anywho, I am hoping to make a waist cincher this year. I just love the look of a nipped waist in vintage dresses and am dying to get one. I had toyed with buying one from What Katie Did but decided on buying some of their seamed stockings instead since I figure making a waist cincher might be fun. I might regret saying that but hey, it can't hurt to try. Plus I love those seamed stockings with dresses and skirts and even though I work from home, I still make an effort to dress semi nice most days. I only have a few pairs of tights and none of them have a back seam, so I ordered a pair of actual tights and a pair of the traditional stockings, both with the seam. I am super excited because the nice ladies at What Katie Did have some fun videos explaining how they make the seamed stockings and the different dernier weights (thickness, if you will) of the stockings. Also, they talk about the differences between waist cinchers, waspies and traditional corsets. It's a very cool look into the past and they seem so nice.

Back to the cinchers. My husband gave me a copy of Gertie's New Book For Better Sewing for Christmas and as I was looking through that book, I noticed she talked a bit about foundation garments, like corsets and whatnot. Then I went searching for patterns and saw that she had released a pattern for an under bust corset like a month ago! So I am hoping to get that soon as I have been telling the husband about it and I have a birthday and anniversary coming up. haha. Thus will begin my foray into a more vintage-y wardrobe. I'm so excited for it that I already bought some spiral steel boning! I plan on using some of it for another go on a strapless dress and some of it for a cincher of some sort.


My What Katie Did order! Such cute packaging!! Plus it came with a little booklet with loads of pretty pictures and lots of cool info on lingerie. They even have styling tips on how to wear your lingerie under certain outfits. I will have pictures of the stockings in action as soon as I wash them. Hygiene first! :-D In the meantime, here are some of the shots of the booklet. I am absolutely smitten with this book as far as giving me inspiration. Stunning stuff!







Aaaaand I will say that so far I have only made one thing from my new book, but I am planning on making more items soon. The first thing I made was a muslin of the Wiggle Dress. Its too big, but thats what a muslin is for; to test a pattern out! So I will be making it a tad smaller and in an actual fashion fabric. It was a close call between the Wiggle Dress and the Bow Tied Blouse as my first make.


Loving this book already! And he got it for a hell of a good deal, so I love it even more. haha.


Shout out to Simon for getting in the shot. Such a helper...


See how cute that is?! I will be making that soon enough!

Welcome 2019, the Year of the Underthings!