I was offered a place at Manchester to study Clothing Design Technology...4 year BS sandwich with placement...I took it.

I'll be happy to get away from MK and from reminders of a certain someone who's actions, or lack there of lately, have spoken volumes to me. Yesterday was the birthday and I sent an e-card, no reply and after not acknowledging my birthday or making the effort to contact me, see how I've been or reconcile in the 3 months since she dumped me...well...that says it all does it not? So I've closed that door and welded the fucker shut.

At MMU, I'll be near Kristian and Aaron, two very good school friends whom both moved up there to live years ago. My accomodation  bursary is sorted, my loan is sorted...just need to sort out the tuition.

But I am relieved and very excited that I have finally found my niche. I've been hard in the books studying Straight Front corsets and trying to figure out the theory of the patterns behind them. A Lady from E-House who makes absolutely stunning Straight Fronts has taken the time out to explain in great detail some of the technicalities behind the lines but she has only opened up more questions from me lol...I thought I'd cracked it today but after 2 more drafts and mocks ups...I'm more perplexed than ever...but I fucking love it! The challenge of it results in something incredibly stunning which I hope to attain.

Greg wrote all of us an e-mail about 5 pages long from Irag. He seems to be doing very very well out there, his OP only officially started 10 days ago but he's been out there for at least a month or two. I sent him an e-bluey back and gonna put together a care package for him. He's got some wicked pics of his facebook of him suited, booted and armed to the hilt...one of him holding an M249 short Saw...that's pretty fucking cool. He's gonna be alright you know, the more I think of it the more my confidence in his abilities to lead his troops and look after himself grows.

Here are some pictures from the mock up for the Edwardian Straight Front corset I'm working on. I've got some beautiful white floral coutil but I'll be damned if I'm gonna cut into it until the mock up is done properly. After trying it on I have made adjustments to take in the hips and bust cuz...well I don't have tits and wide hips do I!

So after the pinning was done and I carefully took it off, I drew in the lines where the pins now were and realised that some of the seams had changed drastically...now I'm waiting for some people to take a look at it and tell me whether or not this is going to affect the shape of the corset...because those seams must be shaped like that for a reason or the whole concept of a straight front would be moot.

Anyway here are the pictures. When the others have given me their opinions on where the new seams I drew in fall I'll go back to the drawing board and redraft the pattern and make another mock up and do another fitting...hopefully after that I'll be able to start making the real thing. 


Pattern pieces laid out



Pinning the panels before stitching



Pinned and ready to stitch



Stitching the last panel of the first corset half



Finished first half, starting to pin the second half's panels



Stitching the second half



The finished muslin mock up laid flat

Today, the 14th and 19th are very particularely tender days for me. A year ago thing were set in motion by Elinor, 14th being her birthday and the 19th when we actually started going out. I feel very insulted, upset and meaningless that she hasn't wished me a happy birthday, regardless of whether or not her or anyone else agrees with my reasons for staying away and not accepting a step down in the relationship ladder to "friends"...to just dismiss me like that after two months is a real kick in the face..p.s, i already sent her an e-card a month and a half ago to be delivered on the 14th

 So the closure, however awful it is, finally arrived and the line in the sand has been drawn now.

I'm fucking broke, spent my last tenner on ucas. I've been getting nowt but rejection letters all last month. I got a job through an agency on wednesday but after I was done for the day they didn't want me back...1 days work.

 I still have no place at uni...So far I've managed to be the only pleb with a student loan and accomodation bursary offered to me but with no fucking place. My parents are upset because they can't afford to get me anything or take me out which in turn is making me feel even worse because I know they have other more important things to worry about and just remembering is enough.

...And I'm in a war with a debt collector because they refuse to converse with me in writing. I've sent them two letters telling them how much I can pay a month, to send me a direct debit mandate form with a letter detailing that they accept my offer and to contact me in writing only for my records (so I have a leg to stand on, never converse with creditors,banks...anything to do with money on the phone as it's your word against the person on the phone, words can get misplaced, messages "lost" etc). So far twice they have said they have tried to contact me by phone (even though they don't have my phone number and I told them to write to me) and twice they have sent direct debit forms...just the forms, nowt else and they expect me to just fill in my account details? Then when they take out 100 quid at the end of the month exactly how am I going to fight that? They'll just turn around and say "if there was no written agreement then you shouldn't of signed"

Still, atleast a few people wished me a happy birthday and Greg took the time out of fighting the Taliban in Iraq to send me a message which was really nice.

So you can see why I feel like there isn't anything worth celebrating today.

Tommorrow I will be buying supplies for two corsets. The Straight Front and a simple overbust Corset. I'm quite exciting as I've spent the last two months studying corset construction and sewing mock ups...basically to save money, cuz there's noway your gonna catch me "practising" on a piece of $20/metre Coutil...that's just fucking stupid.

So I mailed two shops asking how much material I need, then as soon as they e-mail back I'll purchase the Coutil with everything else. I'm gonna keep a photo diary of the construction to post up here. I'm gonna make around two or three of each one over the next 6 months and once I can do them both to a standard I'm happy with I'll start on my own designs...which I have plenty of already.

Because of this...I feel a bit better as opposed to this mornings budgetness. Had a talk with my Mum about it briefly...Mum's are great.


Went outside and sat in the sun and drew Corsets in my little design book. Spoke to my Mum about the garden plants and we had a gander at the different things she's growing.


It's my birthday in 7 days time. I'll be 25...last year on my birthday was when Elinor and I first *ahem* - "got comfy". 19 days later after much thinking and discussing we decided to get together.

June is not going to be a cheerful month for me...If I can just get through it, I would of taken such a huge leap forward.

I just had a really upsetting dream about my ex. For some reason I decided to attend a gathering with her and our friends for drinks and stuff. 

I remember feeling very isolated as everyone carried on talking to her as if nothing had happened between us, I felt very uncomfortable and pretty sick at her casualy flirting with everyone. She didn't say a word to me the whole evening and ended up in bed with someone...I actually remember going into another room and screaming because of the amount of distress it caused me.

Very much how I feel right now...like screaming, I couldn't find an adequate word until now to describe this lingering trapped feeling...but I realise now that it's distress...despair and distress.I'm left now feeling very very upset again, so much for my support system. I've now been snapped back from the illusion of progress so fast I've shit myself.

I wish I hated her...then atleast this would be easier. Hopefully by the end of the day this feeling would have subsided and I can get back to moving on and finding someone else.

So the last week or so I have been working on my first corset. Things are going well...the easiest thing I've found so far is the actual pattern. Funnily enough the general lines of construction follow very closely to those of correct topology when digitally modelling a female or male.

So I opened up one of my old creations in Max, studied these lines and pictures of various corsets and proceeded to draft a pattern. My first pattern was far too big, stupidly I had drafted one half of the corset to the full waist measurement and only realised when I started stitching the cunt together lol...I actually laughed at my total stupidity...

...so back to the drawing board after three or four days and I started another pattern, this time drafting to half the waist measurement - 5 cms...and then taking a further 2.5cm off the waist via the darts. There are 10 panels per side giving a 20 panel corset with 18-20 bones when eventually finished..which I think is far too much for my figure as I'm already very very slim, I don't need THAT much support...but I'm still learning...My next one will probably only need 16 panels in total.

So I spent around three days cutting the fabrics, it's just a mock test cuz I don't wanna shell out harsh monies for expensive fabrics only to butcher them with my stupidity...it's three layers, outer layer in Crimson Satin, strength layer in thick denim (will be Coutil or Duck cotton in the real thnig) and a thick cotton lining.

I finished stichting the denim layer together and am just flat felling the boning channels which is proving a bit difficult to keep a straight seem on a flat felled edge...but I'm getting better very fast.

I'll post some pics up when I get the time but I reckon I should be finished in a week or two...I'm actually quite excited about getting into corsetry, it's just the thing I need right now to take my mind of my ex...cuz when I'm behind the sewing machine stichting my fingers to the fabric for 8-12 hrs a day she's barely on my mind....it's the nightimes and mornings that are killing me.

I'm learning something new everyday and everyday I get faster at what I'm doing and better...seems I never really forgot what I learned in Textiles as a child.

Could you believe that I had ANOTHER tense dream about a certain someone last night...AGAIN?

Fucking hell...I hope the fact I posted her stuff on Tuesday will be the first steps for me...

So...Jez asked me about my interview on Monday...I felt incredibly depressed that day but here's what I wrote to him about it...

Hey man, that's alright. Monday was rough as fuck man...my interview was at 11:10am, got to old street station at 10:40am, had a look at the map and ended up going the wrong way. You see the tube station is only planted under a crossroad so it has 4 different exits.

Anyway, after around 30 minutes I realised I was fucking lost walking around god knows where, and believe me when I say there isn't a payfone within two miles of the station!

THEN...the handle on my A2 portfolio snapped, so I had to lift this heavy bitch using the side handle...which meant I crushed/bruised both sets of knuckles and my hips...it's well painful. I decided to walk back to the station and go the other way...couldn't for the life of me flag a taxi down, I was in a three piece suit with a hat, smelt lush during the morning...but when I finally got to the LCF I was sweating like a wilderbeast and smelt like one too.

So, got there an hour late, spent another 2 hours or so waiting until the end to have my interview...long story short, the guy who interviewed me said it's 50/50, because of the route I've taken It's making it difficult for him to decide on his own a firm answer...so I have to wait till next week to find out...Hammer blow

Now I'm recovering really....erm on the 6th May, Sunday I think, if all goes to plan I will be down in Camden during the day drinking in some random pub before I goto the Underworld to see Ion Dissonance, we could hook up then if you'd like?

What I didn't mention was that a girl doing the Tailoring degree saw me in my suit sitting down in the canteen and came to talk to me about the course, really nice of her...and she looked like a better version of Cindy Crawford...even had the mole in the exact same place. After the interview I found a pub nere the tube station and sat there on my lonesome drinking until 18:00hrs. 3 Stellas later, got back to Milton Keynes around 20:00hrs then waited outside Shout for it to open, I really really didn't want to go out but I guess I had to force myself...apart from seeing my friends it didn't really do much for how I felt, got back at 01:30hrs and just felt so drained of everything and worthless, hence the previous post before.


So now I wait....one thing that was good was that I saw alot of girls in Gothic Lolita clothing...which drives me wild on so many different levels it's not even funny.

Plan for tonight? Play UT2004, watch more 24 and Peep Show....possibly do some more fashion designs.