Beige but not boring

Whilst I love colour, it is my beige underwear that gets the most wear.  I bought this beige and grey lace from elingeria a while back (before they closed :(, still sad about that),  and have been saving it for a rainy day.

I wanted to draft a bra with a power bar after reading Emerald Erin's post on power bars.  When I went looking for information, I found that  Silver Lining Atelier has a great series of posts about power bars, providing inspiration as well as drafting techniques.  I also found some good information in Beverley Johnson's Bra Maker's Manual.

The photo below shows my result.    Apart from the lace, most of the fabric and findings are from Bra Maker's Supply.  I used Duoplex for the power bar and power net for the band.  The duoplex looks like a different colour in the photos, but in real life, the colour match is very good.

For the matching knickers, I combined the lace with a lovely stretch lining fabric, which I think was marked Donna Karan at the Fabric Store.  I only had leftover scraps of this lining from another project, but it was worth saving the scraps for these knickers because the fabric feels so lovely.

The draft was derived from my self drafted bra pattern, and fits nicely, but it doesn't really give me any extra lift or support (well, not that I noticed).  When I thought about it, I realised that my base pattern doesn't give me any lift, and I could probably modify it for an improved cup shape.  I started with my self drafted pattern for a 3 piece cup with lace upper edge.  I took out about 6 mm along the horizontal seam line and trimmed a bit from the wire line, near the armhole.  The resulting cup has a lovely shape on.  Now I need to go through all my basic bra patterns and take this same amount of volume from the cups.

I had only a little bit of lace left, so this bra is more duoplex and less lace.  I actually prefer the fit of this one to the power bar version.

I recycled the bra sliders from an old RTW bra, because I thought they were such a good match for the lace.

Then I used the last scrappy bits of lace and lining to cobble together a matching bikini style knicker.

A little bit girly...

I have more unfinished bras to show you.  Who was it that talked about the difference between blog-finished and finished?  Well, these aren't even blog-finished, but by the time the wires arrive, I think I will be in the throes of Christmas preparations.

These were made using the Emilia kit from elingeria.  

For the first set, I started with the bra pattern in  my previous post and altered it to become a 2-piece cup with vertical seams.  The cups are padded.  Whilst I wait for the right wires, I have inserted some other wires which are a bit longer and more tightly "sprung" than my usual wires.

The briefs were cut off an old Bendon pair I had.  The lycra is reasonably firm, so these are more of the fuller, suck-it-in variety.

Whilst these were all very pretty, I didn't think the padded version showed off the lace to all its beauty, so I decided to make an unpadded version.  It is a bit of a squeeze to get 2 sets out of the single length of lace, so I decided to make a partial band version.  I followed drafting instructions to make a partial bra band.  To modify the cups for a partial band bra, it is necessary to add a seam allowance width (6mm) to the wire line of the pattern pieces.  This is to account for the fact that on a partial band bra the wires sit inside the cups, whilst on a full banded bra, the wires generally sit outside the cup.  I also removed some of the curvature from the bust seam, to account for the fact that my fabric was stretchy.

For the first set, I purchased a pink ribbon to match the darker pink in the lace.  I didn't really like the look of this when attached, so for the second set, I used ivory ribbon.  Yes, I have sewn it off-centre on the knickers, and maybe one day this will annoy me enough that I take it off and redo it?

The knickers are a softer style than the ones above, using mesh instead of the lycra, in the same style as those in my previous post.  The fabrics and elastics would not behave whilst I was sewing these, and I unpicked them and redid them about 4 times.  Which is really off-putting.  Then I was pleasantly surprised to put them on and discover that sewing them 4 times does not make them less comfortable or less pretty than if they had worked out the first time, and that inanimate objects are really not imbued with the emotions of their maker!

A little bit lacy...

I was hoping to have these finished to show you, but today was parcel day, and the underwires I ordered didn't arrive.  The parcels only come in here once per week.  So you will see that the channeling at the CF of this bra is not trimmed and sewn in place.

This set was made using the Gabi kit from Elingeria, though I have used black power mesh and black mesh from my stash instead of the black lycra supplied.  I have some lace left over, so I will use the lycra in another project.

I am making my way through the chapters of my book "Patternmaking for Underwear Design" by Kristina Shin.  In this chapter, I modified a previous draft to create a 2-dart bra cup, which enables lace to be used without being cut into pieces.  A new draft for the foam lining was also drawn, using a 3 piece cup, which you can see in the next photograph down.

Actually, if you look, you will see that I did not do a good job of assembling the bra, as the cups are uneven at the centre front.  I'm not sure why this went wrong, except maybe that the black was difficult to see as I was sewing.  Normally I would unpick and re-do, but the lace was so fine, I feared that I would damage it during the unpicking.

The other trick that I learned in this chapter was to mark the low point of the lace scallops on the patterns, to enable more accurate cutting.  In the diagram above, you can see that I wanted a low point at the CF of the cups and where the strap extension joins the main cup.

Last year, I had a splurge on an Elle Macpherson underwear set.  Being the thrifty sewer that I am, I made a pattern from the knickers before I started wearing them.  The design and construction is quite unusual.  The front is made from lace.  The back is made from a double layer of mesh.  There is a CB seam.  Each CB piece is cut on the fold, with the fold-line being the leg line.  There is no elastic along the back leg line.  The original pair had clear elastic supporting the lace along the front leg line,  I used narrow beige elastic on my version, because I always struggle with that clear elastic.  The crotch has elasticated sides, but you cannot see the elastic.  It is encased between the mesh outer crotch and the cotton inner crotch, with stitching only visible on the inner side.

(Edited:  Audrey asked me what the fit of these was like.  You can see the net-a-porter model wearing the same style here.)

It took me a little bit of brain power to work out how to assemble these, so I have documented the steps taken

Cutting - lace for fronts, 2 back pieces cut on fold in mesh, one crotch in mesh, one crotch in cotton.

1.  Assemble the fronts (front pieces will depend on the design of the lace used).
2.  Elasticate the front legs.
3.  Lay the left back on top of the right back and stitch both the CB seams (one seam will be the outer CB seam and the other will be the lining CB seam) in the mesh.  Mesh does not have a right or wrong side, but turn to "right side out".
4.  Stitch crotch lining to outer crotch along leg line, right sides together.  Attach elastic within the seam allowances, on the cotton lining side.  Turn in the right way, and zig-zag the elastic to the cotton side only (this is a little bit fiddly).
5.  Turn crotch back out the wrong way.  Sandwich front between crotch and crotch lining and stitch.  Turn crotch right side out again.
6.  Line up CB seam on mesh lining and mesh outer back.  Sandwich back crotch between mesh back and mesh lining and stitch.  Turn right side out.
7.  Stitch side seams (I encased mine between the two layers of mesh, but the original pair were overlocked together).
8.  Stitch CB seam of outer mesh and inner mesh together, as far as practicable.
9.  Elasticate waist.

You can see that they are a little more work than your average pair of knickers.  The result is both comfortable and pretty though.