Category: Blog

Corset Clearance Sale – Underbust Inventory

Posted on by Felix

UPDATE (January 2020): This post is obsolete as we’ve moved everything to do with sale corsets to corsets.felixandkitty.com.

ADDENDUM (May 3, 2019): After Calgary Comic Expo, this inventory is quite outdated.

We’ve had a lot of requests about what we have in stock and what corsets are included in our sale after we announced our Corset Clearance Sale.

We thought the best way to answer this was in pictures. What follows are a set of quick & dirty photos to show you our sale inventory of Underbusts (we’ve posted the Overbust equivalent here) as of April 8th.

This will give you an idea of the colours and fabrics we have on offer. If you don’t know your size, that’s no problem, just fill out our form here and we’ll figure that out for you.

Here we go (and, if you have any questions, let us know):

(*** inventory photos removed Jan 24, 2020 – see above ***)

These Shoes Were Made for Walking (in Time and Space) pt.2

Posted on by Felix

Or, Kitty’s continuing shoe adventures, TARDIS edition, Part 2 of 3

Last time, we made it to the point where all the boot pieces were cut out, everything that needed gluing was glued, and I was ready to start painting.

Painting leather isn’t quite as simple as painting canvas.  Before I even got out the brushes, I had to strip everything from the leather’s surface – any residues, oils, and finishes which might keep the paint from adhering properly.  If you skip this step, all your hard work will likely chip or rub off rapidly.  I used this deglazer, because I had it handy.  Next time, I might do a little research to find a less toxic alternative, because it was a bit hairy.

Evil-Smelling, but So Useful

Note the scary blue gloves. The deglazer is wildly volatile, evil-smelling, and also flammable.  I should have taken it outside, only it was snowing, so I ended up with a chemical-induced headache instead.  Yes, I tried the vented glue table, but I think these fumes are lighter than glue fumes, because the vents didn’t suck them up quickly enough.

But hey, it did the job. I don’t know how well you can see it in the photo, but the only the right-hand piece was deglazed; it’s much less shiny and more porous-looking. . It also smoothed out the work surface nicely.

Before & After De-Glazing

When I was done coughing my lungs up after inhaling deglazer exhaust, I finally set about painting.  I used paint especially formulated for leather, not regular acrylic craft paint.  The leather paint costs a LOT more, but it has much better durability and stays more elastic after drying.  Remember, dear kittens – leather STRETCHES.  If your paint doesn’t, it may “craze”, or form lots of tiny cracks, and eventually chip off, when your foot moves and bends during walking.

This (below) is after I put in the basic galaxies.  I swirled on five or six colours with round brushes, blending out any hard lines with a cotton rag.  It took longer than I expected to get everything the way I liked, but nobody wants stick-figure galaxies.

Next, I added stars. The key here is to add points of different sizes and concentrate them more near the hearts of the galaxies.  I used brighter white stars as well as duller gray and beige ones to add a little depth.  Finally, I drew in the TARDIS. Painting crisp lines on the pebbly surface of the textured leather proved trickier than anticipated, and my draftsmanship has never been my strength, but it’s the suggestion of TARDIShness that counts! 

TARDIShness

I decided to put the TARDIS on only one shoe, because, after all, there’s only one out there.  The foot without the TARDIS was given the consolation prize of a shooting star and an extra half-galaxy or so.  

Once everything was well dry to the touch, it was time for the topcoat.  I could have left it as is, but after spending the better part of five hours painting, I was &*$# well going to make sure my work sticks around. The finished seals and protects the paint and helps make it more weather-resistant.  This is the kind I used:

Topcoat

At this point, I had to wait for everything to dry completely before hand-sewing it all together, and also for Felix to cut and polish the outsoles, so I could actually wear this in the real world.  There were a LOT more steps to this process than I had realized before I started.

But next time, these funny-looking puzzle pieces get turned into actual, wearable boots!   And then it will all be worth it, right?  Right?

These Shoes Were Made for Walking (in Time and Space)

Posted on by Felix

Or, Kitty’s continuing shoe adventures, TARDIS edition, Part 1 of 3

We’ve done a TARDIS corset.  We’ve had fun with a variety of attempts at shoemaking, for a given value of fun.  And now we’re going to put those things together and see what hatches.

I mean to recount the process step-by-step, so this entry will be broken up into three parts, so as to avoid having a novel-length blog.  But eventually (maybe by the end of Part 2?), we’re going to get to this, which is the painted, but not yet assembled, top of my future TARDIS ankle boots.  And of course, the finished boot, assuming I haven’t lost a finger and given up by then.

TARDIS on Leather Shoe Vamp

First, I started with boots rather than my latest Kitty Paws, because it makes a larger canvas for painting. This is one of the ideas I tried out on my search for workable designs, and it has a nice flat expanse across the top of the foot, which can accommodate an entire TARDIS, along with a few galaxies.

Soft Black Leather

Next, the leather.  I chose this lovely soft black hide with quite a bit of texture.  This texture made it harder to paint crisp lines, but camouflaged mistakes.  As anyone who’s met me knows, I am not a creature of patience or precision, so it was a trade-off I’m willing to make.

Next, we needed some kind of midsole.  This black substance is a flexible but insanely hard-wearing mystery material I can sew through and cut with industrial-strength shears, to which the actual sole of the shoe can later be attached.

Midsoling

I glued the midsoles, now cut to shape, to the shoe sole pieces.  You’d think the midsoles would be a tracing of my feet, but nothing in shoemaking is ever that simple.  One of the most annoying things I have learned as I stumbled along is that your shoes are in fact not the same shape as your feet.  The sole is NOT the outline of your feet, the finished shoe does NOT measure the same around as your feet, but it’s all related mathematically through some kind of arcane mystery you have to solve as you go.

Anyhow.  The glue went on both the midsoles and the shoe’s sole pieces.  Getting the glue inside the lines is a fiddly, persnickety job.  But thou must stay within the lines, or thou shalt be cast into the seventh level of Shoe Hell.

Persnickety Glue Work

If you’re wondering, the glue is contact cement, which forms a madly strong bond if you use it correctly. You apply it to both surfaces you want to stick together, then let them dry until barely tacky BEFORE shoving them together.  And you had best get it right the first time, because contested divorces are easier than prying them apart once they touch.  

Oh, and contact cement fumes are nasty.  Felix built a glue table with a suction system that vents out a window, so we can glue indoors when the Great Canadian Outdoors would freeze the glue (and also fingers, which would make it difficult to stay within the lines). 

Doesn’t Everyone have a “Glue Room” at Home?

Next, I stitched the midsole onto the shoe sole piece, despite the aforementioned strength of the contact cement, because overkill is a thing we do around here.  I wanted to be able to run on gravel in these without worrying if the soles might come off.  

By the way, in case you were thinking it, do NOT NOT NOT attempt to sew through midsoling without an industrial sewing machine, and you should wear safety goggles, because a shattered needle fragment in the eye is a realistic option here.

Industrial Sewing Machine vs. Midsoling

Then, after tracing and cutting out all the other pieces of the boot, I had to individually mark, then hand-punch, figuratively quintillions (and literally hundreds) of stitching holes.  This is a task only for those with strong wrists and a masochistic desire for a repetitive strain injury.  I wish I could think of a better way, but no luck so far.  And remember, each of those holes represent hand stitches later down the process.

After all that, it’s time to paint!  Well, almost. Next time, we learn that even painting when it comes to leather isn’t as simple as all that.

Is There a Name For This Concept? Anyone?

Posted on by Felix

(Or the Evolution of Kitty Paws, Part 3)

There must be a name for the phenomenon in which making a tiny change to one part of a system results in a multitude of unpredictable and seemingly unrelated changes to occur elsewhere in the system.  You know, Somebody’s Law or the Principle of Something.  Does anyone know what it’s actually called?

Last time, we were at the point of fitting a preliminary design to the foot. Kitty’s foot, to be specific – narrow at the heel, wide at the ball of the foot, shorter in the toes, and quite muscular (yes, toe length and muscle density really do make a difference in shoe fitting).  

If you feel like your shoes always pinch at the front of your foot but the heel still keeps slipping off when you walk, you may have this general foot shape (or you may just have poorly designed shoes.  We’ll get to that, eventually, though not in this blog).

So I made multiple versions of the test shoes until the fit was right, or as right as I could get it without smashing my own head in with my rubber mallet.  Take it from your Aunt Kitty: fitting is the most frustrating part of making anything you intend to wear on your body, wherever you intend to wear it.  Here’s the latest version:

These shoes were comfortable, nothing felt too loose or too squeezy or raspy or weird, and I could break into a jog without losing them.  However, my feet did keep sliding to the rear, so I ended up walking ON the back of the shoe.  This was because they did not have a “counter.”  A counter, in the shoe world, is a piece of stiff material that acts the way boning does in your corset; it keeps the centre back standing up, so it doesn’t flatten into an extension of the sole when your heel slides back against it.  Most of your shoes have one, even if you can’t always see it.  

Anyhow, I asked Felix, who has tools and deals with any leather too heavy for my sewing scissors to cut, to make and insert counters.  This is what the counter looked like, once we put one in there:

He put an outsole on it, too, so I could technically wear this outdoors now, if we didn’t have a five-foot snow pile in the driveway.

Once the counters were in, my feet stayed put and stopped sliding backward. BUT….

I swear, that big gap at the back was not there pre-counter!  Somehow, inserting the counter made the shoes go from lovingly clutching my ankle to creating a space big enough to keep a hamster.  It was flabbergasting.  Adding stuff to a space isn’t supposed to make it looser.  

But now my heels are flip-flopping out the back with every step, which drives me barmy (that’s British for crazy, if you were wondering), so probably I won’t…. Or maybe I will, because these things are STILL more comfy than any store-bought shoes I ever owned that weren’t huge baggy athletic sneakers.  

There WILL be another version – just as soon as talk myself into believing that I can come up with something genuinely wearable, oh, say, the very next try.  

Felix, the former engineer, thinks he can fix the gap via architectural design, using stiffened and custom-shaped leather as scaffolding (or magic, which is fine by me).   Upon reflection, I think that maybe the glove-soft leather I’ve chosen to use makes the mouth of the shoe stretch rapidly – but that stretch is essential to making future shoes comfortable for as many people’s feet as possible, because realistically, I can’t make sixteen pairs of prototype shoes per size per colour to carry around for you to try. Stretch is comfort, which is why you’d rather be wearing your yoga pants right now and not suit trousers.

So next on the agenda: Felix does something magic with the counter problem, and Kitty finds a way to stabilize the shoe opening while retaining stretch in the toe box area. And someone will tell us the correct technical name for the Whatever Effect.