Jalie 3131

The Jalie 3131 set that I made back in 2014 is still on high rotation, even though the back band has always been too big.  The cotton lycra bra is comfortable on hot, sweaty days when I am working outdoors.  Usually I prefer underwires, but this bralette has more support than many bralettes, possibly because of my addition of underwire casing (even though there are no wires).  I have finally got around to making a new version, with a shorter back band.

The main fabric is remnant from a dress that I haven't shown you yet.  I made the dress late last year, and wore it a couple of times when I traveled a little further south in December, but since then, it has been way too hot to put it on.  I do love the dress, and can't wait to show it to you when the weather cools down a little.

I am really proud of the dyeing that I did on this set.  The parts I dyed were the pale blue fold-over elastic used on both the bra and the knickers, the pale blue lingerie elastic on the knickers and the hook and eye.  I only have a handful of dyes and nothing in the way of pale blue.  Actually, now I can't remember if I used True Turquoise, or Caribbean Blue, but I massively diluted it and then used quite short dipping times.  It worked out a better match for the fabric than I was expecting.  The fold-over elastic is from Lincraft.  It is quite wide, and possibly meant for sewing elasticated bed sheets.  I had to improvise with the straps.  It seems I have a lot of 10 mm elastic strapping, but no 10 mm rings and sliders.  Consequently, these straps are not adjustable.

The pattern for the knickers is traced off a RTW pair of Calvin Kleins.  This fabric is not as stretchy as that used in the RTW pair, so these have a much closer fit than the RTW pair, but are still totally wearable.  And now that I have finally blogged them, I am looking forward to wearing this set!