Trying to Build a Better Binder @betterbinderproject - Tumblr Blog

Transform a sports bra into a binder: THE TUTORIAL

Is it possible to cheaply transform a simple sports bra into a binder? Would that binder be any easier to wear than what’s on the market right now?

WE DON’T KNOW, BUT WE’RE TRYING TO FIND OUT. If you’re willing to give it a try, here’s how.

#admin #tutorial #tumblr sewist #boning method

I'M SCREAMING IT HAPPENED AGAIN AND IT WON'T ME DELETE THIS IS HELL I'M IN HELL

Side blogs can be rough and I'm so sorry for the mistaken reblog folks. Yall this is my worst nightmare, my b.

Anyway, the post is gone and I do actually have something I'm working on for binding theory that I'm gonna make sure I can put out this week as a little bit of reparations to the audience, thank you for your patience with me!

#i'm sorry lordt that was horrifying #the new mod is doing their best folks but i've done cam work for over a decade and apparently can't keep my side blogs straight godddd #this will probably happen again and i am so sorry about that too but i AM a human being & make mistakes so. we'll just have to figure it out #ideally i'll get them down immediately when they happen and most folks will be spared the experience #brb gonna go hide under a rock for a while

betterbinderproject

Let's talk garment structuring theory

I'm making a pleated skirt today. What does this look like and why? Since this is a blog about binders, I understand if this feels like an irrelevant post for you, but if you comfortably can, stick with me on this one.

For starters, I have already knit an elastic waistband.

Something I like about doing this (and perhaps this says more about the tension I use while knitting than specific properties of the waistband) is that when I cast off thin bands like this, they tend to curve like I would need a waist band to in order to sit properly at the waist. It also adds a little give for gathered tops and bottoms, allowing me to be intentional about shaping different parts of the body.

Pleated skirts are all about creating volume. You fold the pleats deeper or shallower to build more fabric and fullness into it, allowing people to create the impression of a narrow waist and wide hips, regardless of the presence of such.

This is because when you want to make something appear smaller (in the case of a skirt, perhaps the waistline) then you don't restrict that area. You add to the places immediately above and below. In doing so, you create the impression of smallness.

So how does this play into binder construction? Well, our goal in this moment is to make the chest look smaller and flatter. Compression is an obvious way to do this, but on its own, it is less likely to visibly "rescale" or "reshape" the area as well as if, for example, one "added volume" to the shoulders and waist, and "reduced volume" at the hips. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, reducing the visible impact of breast tissue may go better when you are highlighting compression of the breast and hip/belly tissue while "padding out" the shoulders and waist. This is sort of the inverse of how you create the impression of an hourglass figure! Compress the waist, add volume to the bust and hip.

The most interesting experiment, for me, will be learning how to add volume to the waist, as this can't just be done with looser clothes, it will need to be structured in, and the waist isn't necessarily a common place people do this, so I may need to play around more with pattern drafting and construction to find the abdominal equivalent of 80s shoulder pads lol

thatqueerweirdo

This is really interesting! I've personally found that it's a bit easier to disguise my chest shape during winter, because I can wear long layers that meet at the waist (so, warm leggings under my jeans + two or three top layers tucked into my jeans = a seemingly more rectangular torso). I also wear shoulder pads pretty much all the time, so as you said, that helps a lot.

When it comes to making a binder, I'd consider looking back at historical clothing and how padding was used. Having a strategically placed layer of padding seems like the best way to achieve The Look.

betterbinderproject

That's the plan! My background is in western coast usa structured underpinnings between 1840 and 1890, lol, so I'm likely to need to leave my comfort zone a little, but I have a number of men's corset patterns I'm reflecting on. Most of them still "nip in" at the waist as this was not necessarily a gendered fashion aesthetic in the same way at the time. So I've been leaning the direction of digging more into how and why crop jackets that stop at the waist can add volume so that additional layering could make up for the drape of a nipped in waist.

Let's talk garment structuring theory

I'm making a pleated skirt today. What does this look like and why? Since this is a blog about binders, I understand if this feels like an irrelevant post for you, but if you comfortably can, stick with me on this one.

For starters, I have already knit an elastic waistband.

Something I like about doing this (and perhaps this says more about the tension I use while knitting than specific properties of the waistband) is that when I cast off thin bands like this, they tend to curve like I would need a waist band to in order to sit properly at the waist. It also adds a little give for gathered tops and bottoms, allowing me to be intentional about shaping different parts of the body.

Pleated skirts are all about creating volume. You fold the pleats deeper or shallower to build more fabric and fullness into it, allowing people to create the impression of a narrow waist and wide hips, regardless of the presence of such.

This is because when you want to make something appear smaller (in the case of a skirt, perhaps the waistline) then you don't restrict that area. You add to the places immediately above and below. In doing so, you create the impression of smallness.

So how does this play into binder construction? Well, our goal in this moment is to make the chest look smaller and flatter. Compression is an obvious way to do this, but on its own, it is less likely to visibly "rescale" or "reshape" the area as well as if, for example, one "added volume" to the shoulders and waist, and "reduced volume" at the hips. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, reducing the visible impact of breast tissue may go better when you are highlighting compression of the breast and hip/belly tissue while "padding out" the shoulders and waist. This is sort of the inverse of how you create the impression of an hourglass figure! Compress the waist, add volume to the bust and hip.

The most interesting experiment, for me, will be learning how to add volume to the waist, as this can't just be done with looser clothes, it will need to be structured in, and the waist isn't necessarily a common place people do this, so I may need to play around more with pattern drafting and construction to find the abdominal equivalent of 80s shoulder pads lol

#would love to hear from folks if they play around with this starting place and how it goes #structured garment theory #adding volume #reducing volume #diy #sewing

Hey yall, I'm newly affiliated with this space, but I've been sewing and tailoring my whole life, including a lot of experience with historical structuring techniques like men's and women's corsetry. As I get more into managing my relationship with my body, I've been working on designing my own binding/compression gear (dysphoria, but also medical compression garments for dysautonomia). It's a work in process, and I'm not quite to mock ups yet, but when I am, they'll go here!

Thanks to the former blog lead for letting me do this!

Hey, it's @star-anise. I started this project but I've been struggling to keep it going ever since.

I need help.

I'm sure there are ways for people to share information about boned binder experiments, to link examples or review things for sale. I put myself at the bottleneck of this blog when I've struggled to keep my own life together. I can't run a community into the bargain.

So if the people interested in this idea find other ways to assemble and talk about it, I'll do my best to support and aid you by signalboosting. If somebody wants to keep this blog up, let me know.

Once I get my sewing studio back together, I still have more ideas to get back to testing. I just have to be more realistic about what I can and can't do.

Nemuro Corsets has a boned chest binder you might find interesting to look at.

Oh cool! It’s custom made-to-measure for any size, $170 USD, takes a couple months to make and ship. Has anyone tried it?

#chamomile-crow

would you say this is a good idea to do with a commercial binder rather than a sports bra? i thought of adding bones to a spectrum outfitters binder particularly since its longer than a sports bra and has a stiff front and stretchable back, but maybe that'd be too much pressure?

Great question! Has anybody tried this?

@star-anise note: I know that when I started this project, just adding bones to a sports bra didn’t work--they spread out as far apart as the sports bra itself did and it just looked weird. It was adding the elastic strips that provided more compression. It’s my experience with corsetry, too, that bones don’t contribute to the “squeeze” of the garment so much as make it sit more comfortably without wrinkling or grabbing. So it seems to me that adding bones wouldn’t contribute to the compression, but might make the binder sit more smoothly and comfortably.

#menose

shesnake

congratulations to the person horny enough to make a quarantine lock down diamond heist romantic comedy starring anne hathaway and chiwetel ejiofer

shesnake

this is insane

How much sewing experience would one need? Also do you think a really cheap sewing machine could handle this?

I think most basic machines should be able to do this! I’m not sure about handheld sewing machines because I don’t have any experience with them, but my tabletop sewing machine isn’t anything fancy. It definitely doesn’t need specialized equipment. It can also be done by hand if you have the time and energy.

Forever tip for new sewists: GET TWO SEAM RIPPERS. Seam rippers give you the power to undo mistakes and remake the universe. Seam rippers make you a god. Mistakes are inevitable, so come prepared. Therefore, losing your seam ripper is a cause of great woe and lamentation, and Murphy’s law says that you will inevitably lose your seam ripper. (You’re probably sitting on it, or it’s under your chair.) Get two.

If you’re new to sewing, I think the hardest skill to learn will be sewing the straight lines. If you veer off course, you might make your boning channel It can take a bit of work before you’re used to guiding and moving the fabric around. To work on those skills, grab a piece of paper or fabric with lines drawn on, and practice your sewing:

This video teaches pivoting, which is a skill you’ll be using a lot for this project. For other projects sewing curves would be useful to practice, but they’re not big in this one.

Technically you can sew this with any needle and any pins. However, if you want your binder to last longer, I recommend a ballpoint/jersey/knit/stretch needle, which means knowing how to change the needle in your machine. Here’s a beginner look at how to change needles, and if that doesn’t work for your machine, often if you google your specific sewing machine model, you can find a manual or a tutorial video that’s more helpful.

#acestars

(2/2) - is there a reason (besides being less visible & being able to build off a cheap bra) to only cover the ribcage & not further down like historical stays? do you think it going further down & therefore having longer bones might make it more or less comfortable or flattening? any insight very appreciated. regardless, thank you again, & hope you're well!

Hi! I think that if you’re making a garment of your own instead of altering something off the rack, it would absolutely be better to make it a longer garment. For one, longer bones equal more distribution of pressure, which is easier for wear.

I found with the early prototypes that my bones either had to be quite short (4″) or I had to commit to a garment that went up to about an inch below the collarbone, because in between there’s sometimes a visible “shelf” effect at the top that doesn’t look quite natural. In a perfect world, I’d make the bones cover about the same surface area as GC2B’s half binder.

If the bones go down past the end of the ribcage, you have some issues with mobility because it limits the ability to bend forward at the waist. It’s not an insurmountable problem (and it can be nice to have support at the waist and lower back, especially if you’re doing a lot of squatting or lifting--kind of like a kidney belt) but you definitely have to learn which ways of moving your body is capable of while you’re wearing it, and which it isn’t.

#worshipthesquid

Hey I’m thinking of throwing my hat in the ring in this project and making an attempt at one of you’re “making a binder with a sports bra and things you can find at the dollar store” binders. Has there been any updates to your designs/ Data since your last post?

Hey! @star-anise here. I’ve been tinkering with designs nonstop but I have very few really useful updates. It’s more like I have 99 new designs that don’t work enough to satisfy me. I also really don’t have what it takes to run a blog this complicated and busy, and am going to work in 2021 to simplify it/bring in help to run it (to do things like handle emails or to find and reblog examples of people trying these concepts out).

Small tip: If you’re using dollar store needles, take a good look at their eyes before you buy them. That’s the hole at the top of the needle the thread goes into. I’ve been to dollar stores where some needle packs on display are very normal, but in others, the needle eyes aren’t open all the way so they can’t be threaded, or haven’t been evenly cut out, so you can see jagged bits of metal left inside the eye, which makes them hard to thread and then could possibly shred your thread as you sew. So keep an eye out for that. If you’re using regular sharp needles, consider sewing with the eye end first so you’re poking between the threads of the fabric instead of potentially piercing the threads with a sharp tip; that’s not a worry when you sew with woven fabrics, but with the knit fabrics this project uses, it could affect how much wear and tear your binder can endure. Alternately, consider going to a sewing/fabric store and investing in ballpoint/knit/jersey needles instead (which is generally $5-10)

The biggest change I’d suggest to the process itself is about the elastic ends--the elastic tended to give out in the test binders, so instead of leaving the cut ends raw, I’d suggest turning them over once or twice and stitching them down like a strap end before attaching them to the garment. Like this:

Oh I guess the other thing is, your mileage may vary about whether you want a bone around the side/back of the binder:

Some wearers found the side/back bone important to their comfort because it evened out the pressure being put on their shoulderblades; others found it really annoying when it jabbed them when they were putting it on, or found it poked into their armpits. So be thoughtful about whether you want it or not, and where you place it.

#sweederose

Heya! Do you have a moment to talk about the kind of fabric you used to make these prototypes? I know that, for the sake of ease and accessibility, they’re adapted sports bras, and the material looks sort of t-shirty. I’ve made corsets before and they usually take really stiff material, like the canvas in the chest part of my binder. Do you have any thoughts on how the stretchiness vs stiffness of the fabric affects this garment?

I think the ideal binder would be half stiff and half stretch. The waist of a corset is trying to cinch in a column of muscle, which is very difficult, so of course you want to bring all the force possible with stiff fabric and boning. However, the upper chest is a very different affair, because the ribcage is very solid and should not be compressed very much, while the chest we want to flatten is easily-squishable fat.

Although humans can make our stomachs expand when we breathe, as in diaphragmatic breathing, this isn't strictly necessary. Our lungs are in our chests, and it's mostly the ribcage that expands when we breathe. Traditional corsetry compresses the waist but allows the chest to expand, and the traditional result of an expanding chest and a non-expanding corset has been the "heaving bosoms" of great lore: The breasts push against the corset and rise up because there is no more room for them inside the garment.

However, this is not something we want with a binder. We want the breast tissue to already be pressed flat. Therefore, it needs somewhere else to go. I think that failing to give the ribcage enough room to expand accounts for a lot of the pain and breathing problems non-stretch binders cause. So I'd say that the front half of a binder would do a lot better if it could easily stretch out a few inches so its wearer could breathe without the chest trying to rearrange itself.

The biggest problem I've found so far with my current binder model is that the elastic becomes overstretched in the back, causing the entire garment to become baggy and loose. Ideally, the back half of the garment would be non-stretch, just accommodating the shape of the ribcage without trying to exert much pressure on it. (In wearing similar garments I've found that a little light boning in the back makes it more comfortable, but isn't 100% necessary.)

So if I were making a completely new garment from scratch, I'd use two different materials for the front and back. The back, non-stretch version would be fitted with the chest expanded, and then the stretch version would easily provide compression, but not so much that its wearer can't breathe deeply. And less compression is necessary if the garment is boned than if it isn’t.

Could you recommend places in which I can buy things to make better binder?

@star-anise here! You’ve got some choices ahead of you.

I tried limiting the materials for my design to things you could buy at any store that has a “sewing” section, like a Walmart, grocery stores, or dollar stores. There are fancier things you can get if you go to a specialized sewing places (Walmart with a sewing section, JoAnn’s, Fabricland, etc). and if you want the niche option of spring steel boning, you’ll have to go to the real specialists. For this post I’ll link to independent fabric stores online, of which there are A TON.

I personally am a fan of local fabric stores (especially independent stores) so you can talk to the staff and ask questions, but I have the advantage of being a cis woman and 😔 fabric stores can be very hit-or-miss about being sensitive to the needs of anyone who isn’t a cis woman. So your mileage may vary.

Base garment - I’ve only used Fruit of the Loom so far; I like them because they’re fairly simple and made of breathable cotton. Here’s their selection of styles - I’ve used the strappy and tank versions, which have the trade-off where the tank is visible under a wider variety of shirts but well-suported and less likely to move, and the strappy one is easier to hide but a little less supported. I haven’t yet tried, but I want to, the front-closure model, since I think it would be way easier to put on. You can buy directly from them, or use their “where to buy” page.

Elastic - widely available, but for an example, from Fabrications or The Workroom; I’ve seen it in local dollar stores and fabric shops.

Boning - Heavy Duty Cable Tie option - From Home Depot; I’ve also seen it in dollar stores and sometimes electronics shops; needs 3/4″ twill tape (and a utility knife or heavy duty scissors to cut)

Boning (6mm x 10cm or 1/4″ x 4″) Spring Steel option (less bulky than the cable ties) - Farthingales, corsetmaking.com

Boning Cover - Twill Tape Option - Farthingales, Corsetmaking.com,

Boning Cover - Bone Casing Option - Farthingales, corsetmaking.com,

I hope that helps? It still feels like this is a lot of information and I’m being very, “Have ALL the choices!” instead of streamlining things and making them feel less intimidating.

#geekycalligrapher

So is this project still active? I’m very curious about it and while I’ve only every really sewn basic repairs and embroidery on crochet projects, I’m very invested and do have access to a sewing machine and like, free time

@star-anise here: I am still here, ish. Nobody else has volunteered to help sort through correspondence, so I'm doing it in a pretty haphazard fashion. If anyone wants to sew more test binders, hooray! I'm kind of doodling around with more ideas, since the test binders with rigid boning had a few problems--poking people putting them on, poking in the armpits, etc. I'm trying to find if there are less-stiff forms of boning that will do the same thing (rolled-up duct tape? cotton cord?) or, alternately, if it works better if I use front-open bras, like this.

Hi! I was wondering, would synthetic whalebone bs a viable option for boning, or would it warp too much from body heat to be effective?

I have no experience using synthetic whalebone, sorry! I kind of suspect the only way to know would be to test it and see what happens.

#chadthechowchow

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