I have returned from my travels to the UK where I presented at the Oxford Conference of Corsetry on digital drafting. I’m not the best presenter in the world so it was a huge thing for me to do but I got through it though and I hope I have enthused a few corset makers to give digital drafting a go.

There were some great presentations from industry experts – Barbara from Royal Black, Marianne from Pop Antique, Laurie from Laurie Tavan Corsetry and Gowns, and Karolina Laskowska brought (and talked passionately about) a selection of vintage corsets from her Underpinnings Museum. I took the pink cage corset that some of you have the pattern for along to be photographed as part of a special Underpinnings Museum exhibition.

The focus on the Sunday was business and of course the model shoots. I had two models this year as this is always a part of the weekend that I love. I’m waiting for the professional photos but here is one I took with my new camera of the lovely Miss Tosh in the high-waisted pencil skirt (May 17’s pattern). Miss Tosh performed for us and gave a fabulous after-dinner talk about the history of burlesque.

The standard of corsets that you see at this conference is incredible and very inspiring. I always leave with a mixture of emotions – wanting to get home to create better, more interesting designs, but also feeling like the bar is set so high now in modern corsetry that how I possibly compete? We’ll see – it takes take to become brilliant. I’ve been at it 5 years - I wonder what the next 5 will bring? If you have considered attending this event I can thoroughly recommend it, so start saving now – the next one is in summer 2018.

The Oxford Conference of Corsetry is gearing up. It is happening this weekend at Jesus College and is attended by delegates from all over the world.

I'm presenting on patterning in CAD - a one hour slot that covers the basics of creating made-to-measure corset patterns. It's basically a condensed version of my CAD manual 'Corseting the 21st century body - techniques and patterning in CAD'.

I'm hoping that attendees will bring their laptops so they can learn in real time. After a summary of how to use the basic functions I'll be using somebody's measurements to create a simple made-to-measure waspie. If I can enthuse just a few corset makers to adopt my approach, then my work is done!

It's really nice to work with other corset makers. Scarlett Sapsford from Scarlett corset making recently contacted me with a sketch she had drawn of a corset design and I managed to interpret it 'digitally', that is, turn her 3D picture into a 2D flat pattern. I can look at the dimensions in space and approximate it in CAD. It helps that I now have a large library of designs (about 24 to date) that I can draw similarities from. There is some tweaking of course - Scarlett made up two iterations of toiles before she was happy, but it's a great way to design and illustrates the beauty of patterning in CAD - fast, efficient, and effective.

If you would like to work with me or have existing paper or PDF designs that you would like amended or graded, please get in touch. A rough idea of fees is below;