So I recently ordered a bunch of Grommets, Snaps and Rivets because I thought they would look good in latex... ok ok we've all seen the pictures, I bought them because I KNEW they look good in latex.

First things first, let's do some tests, both to figure out how each one works and also get some examples of what they look like.

So in order of left to right we have

1. 7mm grommet (or eyelet as I'll keep calling it)
2. 7mm double cap rivet (same cap on both sides)
3. A failed hole with a tear
4. A failed snap (I'll explain shortly)
5. 9mm snap female side
6. 9mm snap male side
7. 9mm snap with cap male (cap is on other side)
8. 9mm snap with cap female side

Along with all these parts you need some tools to assemble them, I have the big green DK-93 Snap Press that you can see in the first photo. You can also get hand held plier like ones, or tools designed to hit with a hammer. I got the press because it was only like $30 from where I ordered everything! In the first photo you can also see the green boxes and a few bags with the various dies needed, to either make holes, or fill them without damaging the pieces.

Eye eye captain

The 7mm eyelet is simple enough, there's 2 parts to it but I still don't feel I'm getting it quite right. First thing you have is a die set that cuts the 6mm hole needed. The eyelet (or apparently the correct term is grommet?) has a rimmed cylinder that goes through the hole you just made with the rim on the hero side (bit that will be seen) and then you have a washer that goes over it on the back. When you push the press down it squishes the tube down over the washer and locks it all together. My biggest issue I'm having with it is that the tube doesn't roll over neatly, and is instead splitting as you can see below.

This isn't the end of the world, despite how it looks the edges aren't really sharp, and I've tried a few methods to see if it helps, one sudden heavy press, a slower more gentle press, a lot of little taps, etc etc. None of which so far have made the clean result I was hoping for. I did have a bit of a look online and I've seen people saying using different brands of eyelets have helped them with this same issue, so maybe it's more about the eyelet it self rather than my technique? I'm not really sure but I will continue experimenting, and even then, these are still fine to use, just have to keep the splitting in mind with how I'm using them.

Failures abound

So the next two on the example piece were failures, both were the 9mm snap's I was trying to do. As you can see the first one just came out and even tore the latex around it when trying to get it out of the tool, the second is just malformed and doesn't work to receive the male side of the snap. It took a bit of time for me to figure out what was wrong, and this would have been faster if I had experience with some of this stuff before. As it turns out, the top die I received looks like it had already been used, how do I know? because there was part of a snap still stuck in there and because this was my first time using these dies I didn't realise it wasn't part of it! Once I cleared that out, it worked with a lot less issues. Though because I was using just plain 0.4mm latex with no reinforcement, getting the popper out of the die was a bit hairy. I found I had some brass pin stock from some knife making parts that fitted in the hole nicely and was able to pry it out gently though. In a proper design with these snaps you would either have thicker latex or reinforce it in a way to make it not stretch so you can safely use these and not have them risk pulling out every time you want to take your jacket off. The last 2 poppers are almost the exact same, except they have aesthetically pleasing caps on them, and also happen to be in Gun Metal colour as that's what the supplier I bought from had in stock.

A Stain on my Reputation

One thing you always have to watch out for when mixing metals with latex is that some metals cause latex to stain. I've tried looking up a list of what metals cause this, but when I did I found that information was sparse and even then it was still mixed with different people disagreeing. I'm planning a future blog post where I purchase a bunch of metal samples and test this properly to make a list, but as you can guess it's not ready yet. Why do you bring this up now I hear you asking, well dear reader, the capped rivets I got in this set stain latex. I made this little white cuff as a proof of concept for some thoughts in my head, it's now existed for about half a week, and guess what I noticed on it this morning, stains. One problem I had found when looking to purchase these parts is so many places don't even state WHAT they are made from, and it seems what I've bought here is not safe. Potentially the materials are mixed in my lot so I'll try the other styles I have on some white scraps as well (white makes it very obvious) and see how it goes. Worst case scenario is I have ones to use for non-latex projects but I still have all the tools ready for some new safer ones in the future. I'm sure part of my limitations with finding safe ones are having fewer options of where to buy from here in Australia compared to other places in the world. The shop I purchased them from had a hefty sale as they are shutting down, so that also encouraged me to go there, but hey, atleast the tools were discounted too. There will definitely be more poppers and rivets in my future crafts, even if there is a slight delay to get some more, so stay tuned for that!

The other week I was sitting at dinner out with some friends and I was wearing a pair of my black latex leggings as part of the outfit. Towards the end of the meal I suddenly realised my leggings had spit. Thankfully between my dress and the split being pretty small it wasn't obvious to anyone, not even myself really. My early assessment proved to be correct, a seam had come undone. The best part about that is it's the easiest kind of hole to fix, doesn't need a patch like a tear would as everything already overlaps. So while I repair it, I thought I'd give a bit of a reflection on these leggings.

A Pattern Emerges

The pattern for these is an old one, infact trace back its lineage and it is the very first pattern I used for any latex way back in 2015, just with a few tweaks over the years. Whether these issues come from the original that I bought, or the modifications I did through the years is kinda hard to tell. While I still have a copy of the original, I'm not planning to make it again anytime soon as my measurements have changed and I want things that I make to fit.

These leggings are just a catsuit, cut off at the waist, simple right? In general this is fine to do, and for legs my current pattern hasn't really varied from what I've done here. It's made from 6 pieces, front and back of each leg, and the same for the torso. My newer patterns have the pieces join in a different shape but realistically that is the same outcome.

The Math Just Doesn't Add Up

The biggest issue on these leggings is, as the title might imply, that things don't add up. Take this seam for example: (Sorry about the cat fluff, you try enjoying latex while owning multiple fluffy cats, it doesn't work well) One side of it is 76.87cm and the other side is 72.70cm, so when you glue it all together one end sticks out 4.17cm (1.6 inches) and just doesn't look right. To account for this bad pattern design a simple solution (that you can see I employed here) is to stretch the short side out a bit as you go along to make up for it being shorter. This means that when not being worn the seam will get this ripple as it's all contracted, but when being worn it's all pretty flat and not really noticeable. While I can't say I've empirically tested it, I also imagine it makes it a weaker joint. The short version is it works, but it's not a great thing to do if you can avoid it.

Avoid it you say?

Yes that is what I said... were you not following along? The easiest way to avoid it is just make sure your seams match up. When planning the pattern a lot of the just straight edge ones will match fairly easily, not much modifications required. The curved ones on the other hand always seem to be more complicated, and that's what is wrong in this example. By tweaking the curves you can smooth out a lot of these, if they are too far off you have to tweak where the curves are from and such, but it's not too bad. (Someday I'll make a post more in depth about my patterns) As you can probably tell from the picture above, I like to make my patterns digitally, this makes it super easy to measure the lengths and just add the ones you need together, then you tweak and repeat until everything is the length they should be.

The long and short of it is just if you're aware that it'll be a problem, you can fix it before it becomes one, which I guess is just kinda how it goes in life hey?

Other hobbies hey?

Yeah I said I'd probably post about them at times and so here's a little post for one of the many other things I do, electronics. A month or two ago while playing Marvel Rivals my mouse started having issues of not being able to hold the click down which is a problem as I was playing that adorable little land shark. I had a look online and found that the series of mouse I like has been discontinued. So what was a girl to do? It's just the switch for the click right? Why don't I fix it myself.

Discovery

The first place to start with electronics repair is usually online, with how many of a product are made these days, chances are you're not the first to have to tear it down and by finding what others have said about it you can save time, effort and breaking things accidentally. In my case I had a Razer Naga Trinity, and know that a good place to start looking is ifixit. I found a guide for basically the exact issue that involves pulling the switch apart and bending things back into place. Long story short, these switches are fiddly and very easy to have parts come out of place and not get back into place, so that attempt didn't last long. Picture credit: Ifixit user Haoran Ke

So now what, I've already disassembled the mouse and broken it even more than it already was. The only suitable choice is to replace the switch, which thankfully list a model on the side, in this case an Omron D2FC-F-K.

Throw this into your favourite search engine, follow the trail and eventually you find some replacements, I also thought to check the places I've bought components from before, Element14 and Aliexpress. Element14 had the proper switches from the original manufacturer and Aliexpress has cheaper no brand knock offs, no surprise at either of those. After being disappointed at how long either option would take to ship to me I wondered if there was anything else I could do to get the mouse operational, and then I had an idea...

Operation Salvage

Like all good nerds I have an e-waste collection that I really mean to take and throw away but never do, and in that pile I think I still have the predecessor of this mouse, a Razer Naga Hex V2, surely one of the clicks on that wasn't a problem? So I dug through the pile, found the mouse, connected it to my computer and started testing the clicks, and lo and behold, they both worked fine, it was the scroll wheel that killed this mouse! Now reader, I'm out of practice with soldering and even more so with de-soldering, so to cut a long story short I started with de-soldering the broken switch and had a lot of trouble. Then I went and got some better tools to help me with this (you can always convince yourself you'll have more uses for it later too) and even then I struggled and definitely broke some. But I managed to get a switch out, maybe damaged, maybe not... So back to the current mouse, transplant it in and.... it doesn't work... damnit... maybe I did break it too. Once the immediate frustration passes I pay enough attention to realise I put it in back to front, that'll do it 🤦‍♀️. Carefully take it back out, clean it all up again and put it in THE RIGHT WAY, and sure enough it works. This has now been working fine for months and allowed me to get back to my game, but it's not where our story ends.

During the research for the parts before, I even managed to find the rotary encoder from the hex v2 that died! So I ordered an assortment of parts from Aliexpress, click switches, rotary encoders and scroll click switches (these I don't need yet, but future proofing you know). Anyone who's ordered from Aliexpress before knows the shipping times aren't exactly the fastest, but so far everything I've ordered has arrived. Fast forward through that shipping time and all of my order arrived a while ago now and has just been sitting the in the box (or drawer!) of projects to do, and if you can't guess by the tone of my writing, we have now caught up to real time of me writing this before work. I plan to finish it up tonight and will have more updates for this post then!

One Evening Later

So that was a bit more challenging than I expected but it is now sorted. First thing I went to swap out is the rotary encoder and found the ones I had bought had the mounting pip on the opposite direction, but as it turns out it's not needed anyway. Then when I came to plug it in, it has a different size connector! Does make me wonder if I bought the wrong part but oh well. It looked like it still had the same cables, and both new and old have a black wire on the same pin. I decided to try de-soldering the wire from the new encoder and swapping it out for the one from the old that has the right size connector. Without much fiddling I did just that and everything connects in fine. Now onto the click switches which is much simpler, clean out the remaining solder from the holes from when I removed the previous switches, both had been taken out because the whole thing of damaging them as I did it previously. A bit of heat, a pinch of solder wick and a lot of finagling and the new parts can fit through. Ensure they're in fully (I've had issues with this before) and some quick solder and she's done. Finagle it all back together, screwing as needed (as usual with life) and when I gave it a test on the computer..... drum roll please........ everything worked as it should!

All in all was this worth what I spent on the repair? Well the mouse I like with the correct buttons under your thumb isn't made anymore, so I wasn't going to get a new one that easily. I did spend more than a new mouse cost on the hot air de-soldering station I bought in this project, but that will be used for years to come. The actual components to fix this one mouse was 100% worth the cost.

All prices below are in Australian Dollarydoos

As you can see the total is a whopping $7.75 which is so much cheaper than buying a new mouse, the Razer Naga Trinity originally cost me $169, and usually you wouldn't even be doing all of that in a single mouse, it's only because I salvaged parts for another that it needed all 3 pieces. As for the skates, I bought them in case, if you're careful you can use the existing ones you peeled off, and that's what I have been doing, but I bought it so I included it in the costs for reference.

I also think it's important we repair electronics like this, both just because it can be cheaper than a new item, but also from a waste standpoint. E-Waste is a massive issue with recycling all of the parts you can from it, and why make items go through that if you don't have to? It's just so much better for the environment for every piece you can keep out of the cycle for a bit longer.

I thought a good place to start this off would be to talk about my favourite thing I have made to date (and that's including non-latex!)

I call it, The Green Dress

Yeah I know, I need to work on my naming skills, it's a recurring problem beleive me. This dress came about when my future sibling in law invited us to their birthday party at the local queer club. At the time I was regularly working away from home a week at a time, and it was while I was away I decided "yeah, let's make a dress for that" which was promptly followed by the thought, "guess I'm only going to have 2 days to do it" and such a challenge was born.

The Challenge

I was starting kind of from scratch with this one, but also had some previous projects to pull parts of. First question was what kind of dress did I want to make, and being me, I love the skater dress style so that was an obvious choice, full circle skirt, form fitting top with little sleeves and a nice cut out considering it was designed for clubbing 😉

Circle skirts, now that is easy, it's litterally just a circle (guess that's how it got it's name huh). Just have to figure out waist measurements for the inner circle size, and then work out how long you want it to sit and do another circle that amount further out, simple right! With the size of the skirt compared to the rolls of latex, it does have to be made in a few parts that are joined to be the full circle, but that's easy as pie.

The Top of my Problems

I had been struggling to figure out proper form fitting tops for a while by this point. I'd been wanting to make ones with what is called a "princess" cut design, which fits much more form fitting under the boobs and then expands to fit them in. Previous patterns I had used were just straight across with no added room, so you tended to get a 'bridge' above and below them where the material stretches out. As you can see, a lot less definition around the chest and it tends to just compress it, which is both uncomfortable and just less visually appealing. There was however one thing I'd made recently successfully with a princess cut, and that was a blouse pattern I slightly modified (Happened to be about the right size, just made it more of a shirt than a blouse) that I found on Mr Doo's Latex Primer that I've linked below, I recommend checking out that site. Making: Latex Blouse With Frill While I'd made this and it fit my pretty well, I didn't understand how to properly modify it for my needs, and because of the short time limit, I certainly wasn't able to get my head around it properly in time. So I did what any person would do, and just used that pattern for the top, I knew it fit and only needed small modifications to make what I needed.

Masses of Modifications

So I now had the 2 base pieces, but they don't quite make the dress I had in mind yet do they? so we have to start modifying! How does one start with modifying this you might ask? well dear reader, you start..... by putting on latex! Ok but actually, I put on the shirt I mentioned in the previous section that I had already made and an old circle skirt I already had. This allowed me to have a better idea of what I would achieve (I can't picture things in my mind, so I tend to be more physical with it.) The first things I notice, this skirt is old and doesn't fit well, but after that I decide what I'm going for here should be longer. My thoughts then wander onto the boob cut out, how do I want it to look? how do I translate that into the pattern?! well, the easy way to figure it out, just sketch on the top of the same pattern you're already wearing! As you can see here my drawing ability is not exactly symmetrical, so I drew an arrow to the side I felt was more what I wanted so I didn't get lost at somepoint in the process. I work with digital patterns, I learned a long time ago that I can't hand draw them and make them even. I even spent a lot of time and money building a laser cutter to make my digital patterns work better (oh hey another blog post idea.) I already had the digital pattern of the top from before, so I just had to figure out where my desired cut out modifications fall on the digital version and put them in. At somepoint I would have decided on a colour I wanted to make this in, I think it might have been while I was still at work days before I actually started figuring everything out. What I had chosen was the lovely metallic green I had from Radical Rubber, I think it was because I had this colour sitting around for years and never really used it. While pulling the material out of the storage cupboard, I had the idea of putting a trim on the dress, but what colour should I pick? Find out in the next episode of... okay well just later on in this post 😝

A Cut Above the Rest

With the patterns made, it was time to start cutting, and here is where I introduce you to my baby Laser-Inator Here she is cutting out the start of the dress, one of the 4 segments to make up the circle skirt. She diligently worked away and cut all the pieces out so much neater than I could have by hand.

I started by assembling the front of the top. Now something you'll notice if you look closely at a bunch of my designs is that I always try to make my seams go front to back, I don't always succeed at this, but I feel it's a little detail that just makes it look a bit nicer. You can also see me using tape to help stop the latex from curling while I'm cleaning and gluing it, I find myself using this technique less these days, partially because I just don't want to use plastic like this. So if anyone has a good kind of compostable tape for this, I'm all ears. While it was sitting on the mannequin like this I had more of a look at the trim. Another great part about digital patterns, is I can make a trim that perfectly matches the edge, and is a consistent width from it the entire way around. So I made one for the neck area and tested it out, I was happy enough that I stuck it on at this point. I then moved onto assembling the back ready to join onto the front when I get to it. I happened to take a nice photo of the pieces laid out, presumably I sent it to someone at the time!![[Pieces.jpeg]] All the trim was added while it was in these separate pieces as it's easier to do it while it can still lay flat. Not impossible to do after, I just decided that was the order of operations for this project. The keen eyed among you may be able to spot the colour I went with in the end too. After assembling the 2 halves of the top I made, and the 4 pieces of the skirt, I had a tshirt and a skirt basically. I tried them on at this point to figure out where I wanted to cut the shirt length wise to attach the skirt. This is something you'd usually plan further ahead, but with time constraints and jury rigging an existing pattern, this is how it all fell into place, this caused some issues we'll get too later (am I saying that too much?) I cut off the shirt at the desired place, went to glue on the skirt and found that my patterns, being different, didn't actually match one what I needed to glue to each other. When this happens, I tend to just make do, stretch the shorter one out a bit as needed. It makes it look not great when not worn as it's all bunched up from trying to retract it all, but when wearing it's not that noticeable. For this dress, about 6 months later that did cause an issue with a tear forming because of this, so I ended up adding a triangular patch to make it all match up better, but that's getting ahead of ourselves. Also hey, guess I got to covering that issue pretty quickly, neat.

At this point, it was all about done, I had spent a day and a half from actually planning the design until I was at this point. I wore it for a bit and revelled in the glory of what I made, and then took it off, hoping I had enough time for it to properly dry after the washing and shining I still needed to do before the club that night.

The Night of the Club

Thankfully, it did have just about enough time to fully dry so it was all shined up and ready to go for that evening, I guess it helps that clubs always start so late, why is that? I can't stay up as well as I used to! When we got to the club, we hung out in the lobby for a while, waiting for everyone to arrive. Eventually we moved on into the main room and I was not prepared for what happened next. When I walked in, this one girl saw me and her jaw literally dropped, I don't think I've ever seen that happen before and yet here it was, about something I had made. I think that's about the best compliment I have received on my work, and no words were exchanged. Throughout the night I did have a few more people come up to me and compliment the dress, some asked if they could touch it as they hadn't actually seen latex in the wild before, and some touched it without me even realising they were there. Don't do this, be polite, ask if you can before you show up behind someone and start touching them, chances are for me, I'll say yes. The night went on and eventually my feat started getting sore in those boots, but hey, it was worth it, it was a killer look.

All in all the best night I've had clubbing, the best item I think I've ever created and just a wonderful set of memories. I've never managed to make anything as good, as quick before or since so I think that part was a fluke. It definitely had some issues, some I've mentioned some I haven't (just super minor) but hot damn did it look so good.

Welcome to the first post of this blog, my name is Lena and I'm starting this so I have somewhere I can write about my thoughts, projects and whatnot. I expect a lot will be my latex crafting adventures, maybe some wearing of it, but there will absolutely be bits of my other crafts in here beit chocolate making, cooking, building machinery, blacksmithing and who knows what else.

Updates will be sporadic as things happen I guess but I'll try to keep up with it.