After the disappointment of the last dressmaker I spoke to, who turned out to have a totally unreasonable attitude towards whether or not one should pay for quotes (wtf?! If it was acceptable to pay for quotes, builders would do nothing else!), I turned back to one of the first dressmakers that I found from scanning the advertising in the back of a magazine.

She makes corsets and skirts as well, and we had a bit of a chat on the phone, but today I went out to a small village east of London to meet her and talk about what I want. I have to say, I am much more hopeful that this will work out. For starters, she's just much more down to earth. We talked about what I want, which is going to be quite simple really, and she didn't have any problem with what I was proposing.

I showed her my sketches, which is all I have left after the other dressmaker threw away my collection of pictures of nice dresses torn from magazines, and I showed her my lace, the tiaras I'm working on, and talked about the veil and the stole. She didn't seem at all fussed that I want to make my own veil and stole - on the phone she'd said that it doesn't make sense for me to pay her to sit and bead, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if she didn't see beading as a bit of a chore that she's now well shot of!

We sat and looked through her fabric sample - some beautiful silks and velvets, in various shades of burgundy, ivory and gold. She didn't have exactly what we need, so I am going to go to a shop called Macculloch & Wallis off Oxford Street to see what they've got. Apparently they do amazing fabrics, and for one section of the dress we'll need something really quite special and I'm hoping I'll find it there this afternoon.

The most exciting part of the visit, though, was trying on a corset. I've quite a narrow back, so contrary to my expectations I only needed a medium, possibly might even fit into a small if I lose any weight at the gym! I must say, it does amazing things to one's waist - suddenly there's this whole hourglass thing going on that certainly isn't all that obvious in my normal clothes!

I've tried on an 'under-bust' corset before, which had the odd effect of pushing my bosom into my armpits - frankly, that's not all that attractive. This one, though, was a full corset, so whilst it pushes up a bit, it creates a much more flattering shape. I can't wait to get a corset that's actually fitted to me!

Amazingly, corsets only take one metre of fabric, so one can be quite extravagant without breaking the bank. That said, we're going to keep things pretty simple, I think. I like simple and elegant - too much froth and frill detracts from the style, in my opinion.

Anyway, off now to search for fabrics. Exciting!