The Tightlacing Saga's. (Chapter 1)

A couple of months ago, I started toying with the idea of tightlacing again. Those who have been with me from around about the Cretateous age remember that I tightlaced down to a 20" at one time but stopped when I got very ill about five years ago in order to give my body a chance to heal properly.
Skip forward a few years and I started feeling the need for a little more discipline in my life.  Being a complete hedonist, I decided that this need was probably a sign that I am going soft in the head and so I ignored it....and ignored it..... and then gave in to it (probably because I am a hedonist and therefore have no willpower - how's that for a paradox!) The other reason that tipped me over the edge is that putting my jeans on in the morning started to involve a complicated routine of bouncing and pulling.

And so I made myself a new tightlacer. It is beautiful - The base is a vintage pure cotton sleeve lining that is white with a black pinstripe and it has a broad visible maroon petersham reinforcing strip with the same maroon binding top and bottom and ivory narrow petersham boning panels. The play of colours is very bold, but still understated. I always promised that I would never own a white tightlacer as the are too high-maintenance for my liking, but I kept been drawn to the fabric and at the end of countless trips to suppliers over a period of weeks, it was still the only thing that I liked. So there, I now have a white tightlacer.

I put it on for the first time this morning. Ben helped with the back and for once, didn't make my intestines ooze out of my ears which really was a pleasant surprise, Particualry as I hadn't had breakfast yet and so still had a need for them.  It is a nice feeling to be back in corsets again, Although there is still the worry that I am going to have to completely replace my wardrobe.
It is now about five hours on I expected to be a lot more uncomfortable than I am. New tightlacers are on a par with new really stiff leather boots and the wearing in process is the same with the exception that the chafing and bruises are usually on my hips and not my ankles. I have had a little back-ache, but to not have back-ache at all is a very foreign concept to me so that is all normal and a small cramp in my side which is more that likely caused by me trying to behave normally while tightlaced - something that is impossible. It is still very loose at the top and has some space at the hips, but that will fill out as I pull he waist in over time and it has an alarming amount of space at the back. I always find that intimidating, but hey, it's something to work towards. I am pretty tired because I have been on my feet for hours and have in total had one banana and a cup of tea that had polar bears frolicking in it by the time I got to finish it. One banana, then i was full. That bit is depressing. I have completely fallen out of the habit of corset eating - small meals often. and have fallen into the one gigantic meal when I get around to it habit which is probably going to be the hardest thing of all to break. I have also already decided that my next one needs to be about an inch and a half longer at the bottom. This one is a great one for when I am sitting all day, but I need one for days like today when I am on my feet all day too.
This is going to be a log of how thing go from here. I am not sure at this stage how far I want to take it, but time will tell. One of the great myths is that tightlacing is incredibly painful. It isn't. It is restrictive and it is certainly not easy, and except for a bit of backache while your body adjusts to actually been upright, if it is painful, you are doing something very very wrong.

from these two, you can see how mush space there is still at the top particulary. The corset is also still really crinkly because it is so new. Tightlacers usually take about a month to wear in completely. The trick to it all is really just to listen to your body, take it as it comes and relax. I do think that that is also pretty good advice for general life.

I have about four inches at the back to still pull in. By the time I have gone down the six or so inches that the corset demands it will only have about an inch all the way down the back (unless I lose more weight than I anticipate)

Note: I finally took it off after 10 hours, which I think is pretty good. I was expecting to last four. As long as I keep active I am ok, but at the end of it, I had been standing fairly still for about two hours and my back was screaming. Although it was a relief to stretch out, it is always quite sad to take it off. A corset is one of those strange things that irritates you while it is on (particulary while you're not used to having it around) and you miss it when it's not there. I'm not ready to sleep in it yet, so I'll start with days and move up from there. I think that I am very lucky, partially because I have been through it all before and as with tattoos, the mind blows the unpleasant bits out of proportion which has the unexpected side effect of making you breathe a sigh of relief when you realise that it really isn't that bad at all. The other thing is that I am very very flexible. that makes life soooo much easier :)