Longline

Last year, Amy (from Cloth Habit, whom you would all know from her bra making sew-a-long) and I did a pattern swap for self-drafted bras (what fun!).  She sent me her pattern for a long-line bra (you can see her purple silk version here).

I made up a muslin.  I was pretty happy with the muslin, just needed to remove a little volume in the upper cup,  but I decided that I would prefer the cups to be longer and the straps to be wider placed.  This caused me all sorts of grief.  Many, many muslins.  I was getting up in the middle of the night just to try another muslin, when I should have been packing boxes to move house.  Eventually I called it quits and got on with moving house and this project went into the "too-hard" basket.

Last weekend I pulled it out again.  I finally had my "A-Ha!" moment and realised that I needed to adjust the seam direction from the base of the cup and not just in the top half.  By just changing the top half, I was ending up with all sorts of weird S-shaped curves.  My final pattern is shown below.  Amy's pattern is the beautifully labelled white pattern and mine is on the tracing paper.

The fabric that I used for my final version was a teal, paisley lingerie lycra.  It is pretty cool because it only stretches in the width and not the length.  That means you can use it one way for pieces that you don't want to stretch (front) and use it the other way when you want the stretch (backs) - no need to find matching power mesh.  The main fabric and the very pretty straps were given to me by my sister.

The elastic that I used around the edges was from Lincraft.  I don't know what it is called, but the edge looks like a shiny piping.  After I zig-zagged it to the edges. I used my coverstitch machine to sew it down (see how well my centre front V comes together...I was pretty pleased about that!).  I also used my coverstitch to top-stitch the seams.

One of the things I love about this pattern is that the back sits lower than a traditional bra, which is great for lower backed tops.

I like the look of full-waisted knickers with long line bras, but I don't really wear them.  So I made up Zoe's free knicker pattern.  Only then I thought the style didn't match the luxe of the top, so I added a band that came down to a V at the front.  I was really happy with the result.

 I think the final result is very luxurious.  Thanks Amy & Zoe!