#how to sew binders

[shapeshiftersvt]

Big Update Post

Hiya, shapeshifters!

We have some announcements to make this evening.

Here’s the short of it:

The Shapeshifters website will be temporarily down this Sunday evening, March 3, 2024 at Midnight EST.

When it comes back up, you’ll find a shiny new website that is organized the same way with a couple of exceptions.

The Off-the-Rack Sale and Holographic listings will be temporarily delisted.

The Goth listings will be renamed. You will find Rainbow Constellations, Monster Mouths, and a couple of new options listed under Cosmic Horror.

The Skin Tone listings will have brand new additional color skin tone options!

The Island Time listings will also have a new option available.

The Binding 101 FAQ will be rolled into its own section in the FAQ.

There will be a brand new Events Page!

The blog will be temporarily disabled.

If you’re curious about the long of it, keep reading.

For everyone else, we appreciate your patience during this transition! Like so many other transitions, we’re delighted about where it’s going. 

Website Downtime

Shapeshifters is finally moving to Shopify! We’ve done a lot of work over the past few months building a more organized, streamlined website that will be easier to access for you and update for us. On Sunday night, we’ll shut down the current website to pause orders so that we can migrate everything cleanly.

Off-the-Rack and Holographic Listings

The Off-the-Rack listings will be delisted to give us a chance to reorganize the remaining stock so we don’t accidentally double-sell anything. 

The Holographic listings will be delisted while we assess our fabric options. Long-time customers might notice that we’ve removed Liquid Metal and Oil Slick from the Holo listings; we’re sourcing replacements and new options throughout spring. Once we know our options, we’ll either re-launch the Holo listings, or move the currently available fabric Prism to another home so it won’t be all alone anymore.

If you’ve been eyeing either Prism or an Off-the-Rack, buy it before Sunday if you can!

Expanded Skin Tone Range

We’re very excited to announce three new skin tone options will be available after the website migration: Pine, Chestnut, and Laurel! Pine is a pale shade, while Chestnut and Laurel are both on the darker end of the spectrum.

And, the new and improved Skin Tone listings will be the perfect place to see the results of our latest photoshoot! We’re excited for y’all to get to see these photos around the site and on the listings. We sought out models of color with darker skintones both to fill a gap in the modeled photos in our listings, and to show off our darker skin tones. All of our models were amazing, our photographer was great, and the photos are fantastic! We really leaned into the cozy Vermont vibes for this one.

Events Page

We’re going to events again! Hooray!

And we’re not just going to conventions and conferences and Pride festivals. We’re also talking queer markets, fashion shows, and binder sewing workshops!

That’s right, some lucky folks in the New England area will have the opportunity to take an in-person class with Eli, our head tailor and the developer of our DIY Binder Sewing Kits. They will walk you, step-by-step, through sewing your own custom-sized binder and help you troubleshoot along the way. These workshops are designed for sewists of any level and do not require you to own a sewing machine.

If you’d like to host a sewing workshop or would like to have us at any other event, educational, celebratory, fashionable or otherwise, please contact us!

Thanks once again  for bearing with us during this transition and we can’t wait for you all to see the new site!

[kowabungadoodles]

dumping some thoughts in the tags

[avephelis]

trying to singlehandedly revolutionise the men's fashion industry but my heat resistance is zero and im boiling alive call. that a fried faggot ❓ i think i have heatstroke

[arowrath]

even after top surgery i'm gonna be short as hell and i'll probably gain weight when i start t so tbh i need to just learn 2 make my own clothes. bc the problem of never having clothes for my body type is not going to go away ever. unfortunately making ur own clothes is expensive bc fabric is expensive and sewing machines are expensive and fucking up is expensive

[tboygeeber]

Everyone should take a sewing class if they're given the opportunity

Sewing is such a useful thing you can know how to do, you can learn how to repurpose old fabrics into something new if possible, you can learn how to repair damaged things!

Can't find a specific thing? Try to make it yourself!

It especially comes in handy for my day to day life, I'm a younger trans guy, and I grew out of my first proper binder a long ass time ago, and those fuckers aren't getting any cheaper.

So I looked into how and why a binder is constructed, then fucking added a non stretchable panel of fabric into a form fitting stretchy tank top! It's a very functional binder and is genuinely more comfortable than my previous one.

You want to fight off planned obsolescence in clothing? LEARNING TO SEW HELPS YOU PROLONG YOUR CLOTHINGS LIFESPAN! I've been offering to fix my friends clothes for free just because I know I have the means to, and they'll get more time to love that garment.

Learning to sew is one of the most versatile skills you can have, highly recommend

[toytulini]

i dont want to give in to Modern Shapewear but i really hate when im trying to have a Fun Outfit and theres fucking Distinct Lines from various under wear bands (bra, undies, maybe a pair of tights?) all at separate points? that are impossible to hide bc the outer wear is fucking form fitting spandex

[biterflies]

update on the codfather cosplay, i am now learning to crochet so i can make my own codfather head. this cosplay WILL exist and when it does im going to go feral.

[astro-inthestars]

hOLY SHIT IM BEAT i am SO lucky we dont have schoolwork anymore and we're only left with musical practice, but I just had to walk to the market to buy myself some boy shoes and a black tie for my Musical costume (win for the boy community tbh), and just walked back HOUGH i am TIRED

but then i still have to make a diy binder (<-IMPULSIVE DECISION BTW), create a keychain for my friend's birthday tomorrow (can someone help me with that-) AND try to bake brownies for the same birthday. oh my god...

[boyenthusiast]

yO i just realized i could make several different outfits made of entirely DIYed clothes complete with accessories

[tj-crochets]

Next day reblog of the pattern list, now with baby blanket!

Links to my free sewing patterns! - big manta ray - smaller manta ray - monster friend (those monsters with horns I’ve been making lately, but without horns) - pie slice - Fred, the Fish of Minimal Effort - tiny cat (aka Jiji) - mini mothman - whale shark/donut whale shark - juggling frog/toad (aka my smallest, simplest frog pattern of the three I’ve made) - large frog - tiny hedgehog - minecraft bee - minecraft zombie - blorbo - Strawberry Hearts quilt pattern - starfish - little octopus - canvas tote - basic bat and ghost - flannel baby blanket tutorial

[alekgarlic]

finally started drawing the last pages of the my silly dragon age comic and accidentally drew the binder of my dreams🔥💥🐉 🐲

[earlgraytay]

Chest binding is a form of body modification.

Like all forms of body modification, it comes with its risks and drawbacks. That does not make binding bad-- but it means you need to be informed about what is and is not safe.

I've gotten a couple of people on my 'don't buy Amazon binders' PSA trying to claim that warning people about the risks of binding is transandrophobic TERF fearmongering. And it's true that TERFs will often overstate the risks of binding to make younger/newer trans guys afraid to try it. But here's the thing.

Binding your chest is like dyeing your hair, or getting a tattoo, or gauging your ears. It's a process that modifies your body for cosmetic and psychological benefits. There are 'right' and 'wrong' ways to do it-- and generally, the 'wrong' ways to do it are the ways that can cause you serious injury.

If you dye your hair with a box kit, it can damage your hair- possibly permanently. You can wind up with hair that's the wrong colour (say, green instead of blonde), you can wind up with frizzy or thin hair, or you can wind up with a permanent bald spot. If you get a tattoo from your friend Steve on his kitchen table with a sewing needle, you can get a tattoo that doesn't look like it should (because of bad ink or technique), you can get permanently scarred, and it can even theoretically kill you from blood poisoning.

These are the 'cheap' ways to get a body mod, and some people still do them. For some people, they even turn out okay! But you are taking a risk when you dye your hair with box colour or when you get a tattoo from your friend Steve. It might be a small risk; it might be a big risk. The people warning you about these things aren't trying to tell you that you should never dye your hair or get tattoos- most of these folks are heavily dyed and pierced, and many of them have made these mistakes! But they're trying to tell you to get body mods in a way that minimizes risk.

Similarly, the people warning you about chest binding being dangerous are generally older transmascs who have messed up with binding in the past. If we tell you, "don't bind with ace bandages" or "don't buy amazon binders" or "don't bind for more than eight hours at a stretch", it's not because we want you to stop binding! It's because we've made these mistakes with binding, or we've seen our friends suffer from the consequences of these mistakes.

Just like your tattoo friends don't want you to die of Steve-induced blood poisoning, your transmasc friends don't want you to break ribs or start getting asthma attacks. You are free to listen, or not-- but we just want you to know what the risks are so you can choose how to live your life.

[qwimblenorrisstan]

Loving Lies | Cassian x Reader

Summary: Only a few days after the war with Hybern ends, Cassian discovers that you, the “male” that’s been his Second in Command for nearly a decade, are a female in disguise.

Word Count: ~ 1.2k

Warnings: Mentions of war and death, injuries, reader is Illyrian, possessive cass

A/N: This is basically just the mulan movie on crack, hope you enjoy<3

@cassianappreciationweek (yes I know I’m late)

Requests are open!

You, one of his most loyal men, one who’d been by his side for nearly a decade by now. You’d always been relatively kept to yourself, only sharing the barest details that you’d grown up in Windhaven like all the other males, father an unknown male, and mother just another female whore in the camps.

Or at least, that’s what he’d believed. He’d had no reason to question you, and why would he when you’d completed almost every task he’d thrown your way, clawing your way up the ranks until you had your little squadron of males to order and handle during the war with Hybern. Not too many, because your main power wasn’t with your strength, no, it was your mind.

Sometimes, he thought that you could rival Azriel with the ways you managed to challenge his plans and put every perspective into his mind, forcing him to change and adapt until it was as foolproof as could be.

The war had taken a chunk out of the Illyrian army, Cassian knew that better than anyone considering he’d watched the Cauldron blast a third of the army into dust firsthand. But even in the aftermath, you had somehow survived, supposedly barely avoiding the numerous blasts, and sustaining nearly fatal injuries that you were recovering from now.

It had only been a few days since the battle had laid to rest, and Cassian finally let himself visit you. He stood outside the thick white tent’s flapping entrance, candlelight shining out from the inside. Swallowing down any emotion, he carefully walked in, ducking under the entrance and tucking his wings in to not disrupt anything inside of the tent.

However, what he saw inside confused him.

You were bare, which was normal for any injured male when they were being treated, save for bandages around your chest, not because of any injury, but to conceal.

“What is..?”

He trailed off to the little female in the tent, who looked a bit pale as she sewed one of the wounds in your wings, but not pale from seeing the blood and gore. No, she had seen far worse in the war. She glanced up at him, then back down at your unconscious body.

“Your Second is a female.”

The nurse said quietly, almost as if frightened of his reaction. His mind went blank at that. The bandaging wasn’t because you’d suffered some sort of injury to your chest, it was because you had tits.

His Second in Command was a female.

It made sense, looking back. How you were always more scrawny than the other males, nimble while they were muscular. Or how you were much smarter than the rest of the uncivilized brutes, or the way he’d seen the littlest of straps underneath your leathers, almost like a binder. He’d been stupid not to realize it sooner.

With a sigh, he plopped down on the ground next to the low table you were placed stomach-down on.

“Will she wake up soon?”

She. The word tasted odd in his mouth when regarding you. The nurse seemed to relax a little bit.

“The sleep tonic might wear off soon, by the looks of it.”

She replied, and her words rang true as only a few minutes later, you began twitching and mumbling things. The nurse quickly finished up with your wings, and as you woke up, helped you to sit upright, putting a spare block of wood behind your back that was meant for a fire.

Your eyes groggily opened, hazy until you blinked a few seconds, your gaze snagging onto his and widened, glancing down at your chest, before back up at him, and you sighed.

“Well, I guess you were bound to find out eventually.”

You said in a resigned tone. His hands went running through his messy hair in a stressed manner before he finally stood so he could look down at you properly.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He asked in a tone full of what sounded like betrayal. You inwardly winced at it.

“I..couldn’t, this was the only way to keep my wings and not end up like the other females in the camps.”

You said, not having the gall to even look him in the eye after lying to him for a decade. Surprisingly, you felt his hand brush against your cheek as he cupped it, kneeling to be at eye level with you. He gently moved your face, so you were looking into his now soft eyes, yours brimming with held-back tears.

“I..understand, but you know I’m not like the other males, right? I wouldn’t have let them touch you.”

You sighed, knowing that he was a good male.

“It’s not about that, Cassian.”

“Then what was it about? I can understand it for the first few years, clawing your way up the ranks, but you could’ve told me. It wouldn’t have changed anything.”

He then demanded an answer, tone firm but also trying not to push too far. Pushing an injured soldier too far was a mistake he’d made only once, and never again.

You sighed again, this time seeming more resigned to admitting whatever was still keeping your body tense like you were hiding something from him.

“Because we’re mates, and the bond snapped for me, but never for you. And if I told you, then I knew it would snap for you, and you’d know everything and..”

Another sigh, this time at his silence and wide-eyed stare. Your prediction had been dead on, the moment you revealed it, it snapped on his end. He was angry that you, his perfect half, his Cauldron-deemed partner, had hidden it, but a more rational side of him understood. And empathized.

Still, the possessiveness already creeping in, he huffed.

“You’re coming to Velaris with me.”

He said bluntly, and your eyes widened.

“You can’t just-“

“The Illyrians would throw a fit if a single word of you being female gets out, which it soon will, and they’re already unruly after the war. You know that.”

And you did know that, because as much as you hated to admit it, he was right, and had outsmarted you this time.

“Territorial Illyrian bastard,”

You grumbled as you slung your legs over the side of the table, struggling to sit up on your own. The possessiveness didn’t fade, but he gave you a lazy grin that exposed his pointed canines.

“Scared of a night alone with me?”

He teased, despite the obvious strain lurking beneath his words. You shot him a half-assed glare, and the nurse was then again at your side, checking on wounds while encouraging you to “relax” while she poked and prodded you.

“When’s the earliest she’ll be able to travel?”

Using ‘she’ was more natural now. The nurse glanced up at him, then at your wings that had been patched together with hundreds of stitches.

“She won’t be able to fly for at least six months, but if you carried her…I’d give it a week or two.”

She answered in that quiet tone, and Cassian gave you a smug grin that you scowled at.

“Hear that? You’ll be in my arms in no time at all..”

He said with that idiotic, shit-eating grin he always wore.

“Oh, burn in Hell.”

[haxkattpress]

Away Childish Things by @letteredlettered

I'm so excited to finally share this bind of one of my all time favorite fics! Thanks to lettered's generous binding policy, I decided to go all out.

This bind has a foiled cover and spine, hand sewn silk endbands, and thirteen custom chapter headers. It was also my first time rounding and backing.

You can find more pictures and information about my process under the cut.

For the cover and spine, I recreated the design of Beasts of the Field (1902) by William J. Long.

I wanted something that captured both the whimsy and maturity of the story, and this cover fit my vision perfectly. It also gave me the opportunity to recreate another antique cover from the public domain.

Unfortunately, the design was a bit complicated for my Cameo 4, so I was unable to fill the lines in. You can also tell that the foil did not adhere properly near the bottom, so the flowers are lighter than I would like them to be.

Because of the trouble I was having with my Cameo, I decided to foil the spine by hand. I deeply regretted this decision two hours later, and it took me four hours to finish foiling. My wrist still hurts!

Sewing the headbands was my absolute favorite part. I was encouraged to try them by a lovely binder on Instagram, and I ended up completely addicted. I splurged on some fancy silk thread so I could give this fic the royal treatment it deserves! I think they look like beautiful little caterpillars.

As for the rounding and backing... I'm not going to talk about it. Nightmare. Lots of nervous sweating. Emotional agony. Next topic!

I worked on the typeset back at the beginning of January when I had some time off, and it took me a solid week of obsessive editing to complete. My sister suggested that I use Harry and Draco's patronuses for the chapter art, but there unfortunately aren't many public domain illustrations of deer and foxes playing together.

It was at that point that I also decided that I wanted the animals to match the respective ages of Harry and Draco and the tone of each chapter. For the 13 chapters I ended up editing 25 different illustrations together. The bulk of these are taken from vintage versions of Bambi and Reynard the Fox. It's possible that a few stock images from 1980s nature books snuck in there, but I did my best to keep them all pre 1925.

I'm not a skilled editor, and some of these are worse than others, but I'm quite proud of what I was able to cobble together. On the final page I put a young fox and deer running off together. I wanted it to seem like Harry and Draco's inner children had been freed.

I'm a bit embarrassed to say that this bind took me about 4-5 months to complete! I started in early January, and went wildly off track learning how to round, back, and sew headbands. And then I was hit by some killer creative block that only lifted last week!

There are still many things I could improve on, but I'm so proud of everything that I learned and accomplished with this bind! A big thank you to lettered for inspiring me with such a wonderful story. <3

[webdollzz]

a/n: me n my best baby @earth222abi were talking about this on tiktok and I js had to form a post 🧘🏻‍♀️

warnings: none, headcanons rly

this man can and will come home with random strays at any given moment. dogs, cats, you name it, hes brought it back to his canal boat. including a "hamster" (it was a fucking mouse)

cat distribution system LOVES him. "don' mind these, they jus' a couple o' squatters" and its 4 cats sleeping on his floor, table, bed and worktop living their best lives. if he doesn't see a "regular" as he calls them, on a boring patrol night he'll search for them in usual places because he's so worried.

I think he permanently adopted a stray blue staffy & he just annoys TF outta that poor dawg cuz he loves it. (like this)

can, will & does send you those tiktoks he gets on his fyp with 2 likes of some old tosser on their 2014 android and says "litch me". also sends those tiktoks where its like "you belong to me😈😈" and he fully is just an absolute dickhead with annoying you. (abi damn near killed me for sending those tiktoks)

BUT if you do it back n call this man kitten or sum fucking shit he WILL stare at you sooooo fed up. "only funny when I do it." alr double standards.

carves your initials into his guitar.

fully steals feminine hygiene products for you if you're afab, binders & chest tape if ur ftm, what u want, this man gets. fuck big businesses and that.

loves when you two wander around town at xmas time when theres all those little stalls up.

he pokes ur waist. everytime he sees an opportunity, done. snorts to himself when you yelp.

....he loves a good bubble bath I'm sorry. being spiderman means having achey muscles all the live long day so if you run him a nice bubble bath this man will love you for the rest of his damn life. (even though he would either way.)

on that subject, he too gangly for a shower, the shower doesn't go high enough so he either hunches or uses his webs to put it higher (and that pisses u off if ur shorter) and his knobbly ahh knees poke out the bath sometimes but he too busy in his world to gaf. (you're sat on the toilet watching him and just giggling ur ass off)

he loves sewing. his "nanny" definitely taught him when he was just a lil geezer which is how he has all his patches and badges on his clothes, he put them on himself! only sews in the way his grandmother showed him to honour her, and refuses point blank to do it any other way, even if they're easier/sturdier. trust in great mrs brown.

loves picking you literal weeds out the ground with some daisies and presenting them like they're a 10/10 bouquet with a FAT lopsided grin on his face.

if you yawn infront of him I feel like sometimes he'll just blow air into your mouth briefly before carrying on with his business. idk. he's just got such annoying older brother energy and I feel like that's js what he'd do.

thanks for coming to my ted talk!

© WEBDOLLZZ 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒.

[fandomskipping]

Tw: stepcest, obsessive behavior, stalking, breaking and entering, masturbation, subish!/masochist!Gojo

Stepbro!Gojo who wanted nothing to do with you, but became obsessed with you in just a matter of weeks.

Stepbro!Gojo who saw you at the compulsory weekly family dinners and made a point of ignoring you, only to arrive home later into the evening and stalk you on social media for hours.

It was stupid really, how he, a successful businessman that was well into his 20s, pretended that he's above fraternizing with a mere college student, but then paid a private investigator to follow you around when the feeds on your social media didn't provide enough information anymore.

He told himself that it was for your safety, but he was well aware that he was doing it mostly because he wanted to see if you got yourself a lover.

Stepbro!Gojo who bribed your dorm's admin to give him a copy of your room's key just so he could slip into your private quarters and rummage through your stuff.

Stepbro!Gojo who found the hamper filled with your dirty clothes and quickly dug his lanky arm right in, pulling piles of clothes out and dropping them on the floor at his feet.

He tried lying to himself again, thinking that he did this just so he could get a better grasp of what you usually wore to class (as if he didn't have a binder-worth of pictures his PI took of you these last few weeks). But the moment he saw your panties, he quickly dropped the act and lunged after them, pulling them out of the pile and holding them in front of his face so he could better analyze them.

Nude in color and plain cotton. He frowned and he moved the clothes around with his foot, trying to see if there was anything else. Maybe something a bit cuter? Something with lace and silk, perhaps? He found nothing of that sort. No embellishments, no little gems sewed into the material, no cute colors.

Stepbro!Gojo promised to buy you cuter lingerie once you would be living with him, but for now, the ones he found would do.

He bunched the panties in his hand and shrugged his coat off his muscular shoulders, allowing it to fall on top of your dirty clothes.

Unbuckling his belt, he fell on your bed and stretched his legs. He brought the panties to his face and inhaled deeply, his white lashes fluttering at the intense musky smell.

His cock started filling into his boxers and Gojo quickly shimmied out of his slacks and underwear. With one hand he grabbed his cock, and with a few expert tugs, it was standing fully erect, beads of precum already emerging out of the bulbous tip.

With another whiff, Gojo started working his cock, using his pre as lube.

It was embarrassing what he was doing—jerking off in a college dorm using his stepsister's used panties as wank material—but he couldn't help it.

He wanted to see you—no, he needed to see you. With a shaky hand he dropped the panties on his chest and grabbed his phone, going straight to the gallery he dedicated to you. He scrolled through the pictures while his hand moved faster on his cock—he wouldn't last long, he knew it.

He found a picture he especially liked and propped his phone on one of your pillows, so he could grab the panties again. Feeling around for the stained gusset, Gojo gave it a lick, his eyes crossing at your strong taste.

"Fuck," he whimpered, pulling at his cock furiously. His blue eyes found your picture and he imagined you were actually there, watching him closely, telling him he's a disgusting perverted pig for lusting over his stepsister.

Gojo threw his head back and came at the thought of your insults, his dick trembling in his pale hand as shot after shot of cum hit the white shirt he should have taken off.

His body relaxed and slumped into the bed as he caught his breath.

Stepbro!Gojo promised himself that this would be the first and last time he does this, but who is he kidding? He started coming back to the dorm every Tuesday afternoon, knowing you'd be in class.

And when that's no longer enough, Stepbro!Gojo convinced your mom that it would be so much better, so much safer, if you'd move in with him.