I am bored of the little holes

Urk. I made 15 of them last night. Well, J made the first one cos I was scared. I'm not punching them, I'm using an awl, then a pencil, then a biro (with the ink bit removed, after the first one spat blue all over me, but thankfully missed the white corset) to push a progressively larger hole into the fabric that the grommet will fit through. This is a relatively physical process, since you're wrestling your way through two layers of cotton coutil. And then using a pair of giant pliers to squeeze the grommet halves together.

Using the pliers to punch holes would be far, far quicker, but is also much less strong. When you punch holes, you cut fibres that butt up against the edge of the hole. Those fibres can no longer take any of the strain put on the eyelet when the corset is laced. If you use an awl, the fibres are just pushed out of the way, and the lacing strain is distributed between them. Well, OK, maybe one or two snap, and they're probably a bit weakened, but the general principle holds. As, hopefully, will the corset. If I ever end up making these things for money, then 'awl-made lacing holes' will be an optional extra, I think. Or maybe a standard feature that is used to justify my prices. ;)

15 grommets is one side of the corset, and thus halfway. Speaking of halfway, I think the corset is nearly half finished. OK, sure, I'm still on step 6 out of about 19, but given that the first step is 'sew most of the bits together and make flat felled seams' and that the grommets all together are only one step, and most of the remaining steps seem to deal with inserting the busk into the centre front, I think I've spent more than half the time I'm going to spend on this thing. Cool!