Archive | January, 2013

Bra-making Sew Along: Grand Finale!

January 29, 2013 Comments

Friends, it has been a wonderful ride and it’s time for a wrap-up. I love season finales. You know, the kind of plot ending where all the characters–even the ones who mysteriously morphed into into their evil twin two seasons ago–return to the screen for one final blow-out episode. Plot loopholes be darned, closure is good for the heart.

My finished bras!

This bra fits me like a dream. If you’ve been following along you’ve probably picked up on all my little (and not so little) alterations. I altered my cup to a vertical seam. I also used shorter underwires, lowered the neckline about 3/8″, and widened the straps in front–more of a demi style. My bra is made from mostly stash materials that I dyed to match the pale grey-green lace. (I’m really into blushing mints right now!)

My friend’s bra is made from Elan 645 using a bra kit from Fabric Depot Co. I made some alterations to her cup seams to fit for a softer look and lengthened her band a bit–both around the body and lengthwise for a longline bra.

Some highlights from the Flickr group and beyond…

Carolyn made Kwik Sew 3300 in a lovely blue marled knit and cream lace. And she’s a fellow knicker-making fanatic. You can read about these lovely laceys on her blog Handmade By Carolyn. Thanks Carolyn, for your amazing participation and encouragement!

Michelle joins me in a passion for collecting bra patterns. She started out with Danglez DB3 but decided she’d be better off trying Sewy’s Rebecca bra (above). Rebecca is a fantastic pattern, especially for larger cups. Michelle also informed us that Bra-makers Supply was about to release a new pattern called Shelley–as of today it’s available here. For those Sewy Rebecca fans and others who need the option of a side cup piece and multi-seaming–this one’s gonna be a big hit. I just know it. Hop over to Michelle’s blog to see a she drafted a Shelley-type bra from her Pin-up Classic pattern.

This is Mirza’s stunning black lace and red-trimmed bra from Pin-up Girls Classic pattern. You can see more gorgeous pics and read her review en le français on her blog Let’s Tweed Again. Oh Mirza, what a delicate beauty!

Ginny finished her first bra and isn’t it so beautifully made? This one uses a matching kit from Summerset on Etsy–more on her blog GinPins. I just love the ornament idea!

Melissa of Fehr Trade got the kick to revisit her bra patterns and made this decadent bra from Elan 330. In her post about this set, she also included a great tutorial about a way to finish off the top of a cup with multiple layers.

Kazz went on a bra-making spree, y’all. Here’s her post about this set. I think I’m going to have to pull out all my black lace now because wow. Wow. She took the “Hack Your Bra” idea to heart and is just killing her Elan 645 pattern with all kinds of styles–bustiers, longlines…

Did you make a bra and would you like to share? Let us know in the comments! Understandably, I got behind on all my blog reading, so I may have missed you if you blogged about it. If you were a secret sew-alonger you can email me, too. I’d love to hear about your project and how it went.

Over at the Flickr group we had quite the fitting expedition. I’m even in the process of custom-drafting a bra for someone! I really want to thank Norma Loehr and her generosity in answering so many of our fitting questions. And there were many!

It was such an honor to host this sew-along, chat with many of you, and I hope it inspired y’all to keep on at it! You caught the lingerie bug, didn’t you…

Note: All photos here are © their owners.

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Bra-making Sew-Along: Elastic, Channeling and Finish!

January 26, 2013 Comments

Time for all the finishing bits! Okay, so there are a lot of finishing bits, so get on your elastic because this post is going to be picture heavy.

Band Elastic

If you’ve made other lingerie goodies with picot elastic, you’re probably familiar with how this is done. The first side is sewn with the fuzzy side up and a regular zig-zag, getting very close to the picots.

If you want to cut your elastic to measure, a good general rule of thumb is to cut a length about 85% of the seamline of your hem. I like to “feel” it in as I am sewing–just something that happens from experience with sewing elastic. How much tension I put on the elastic depends on the elastic quality.

I flip and on the reverse, stitch the elastic with a 3-step zig-zag. You could also stitch from the elastic side. I prefer doing it fabric side up so I can keep the puckers away:

I set my 3-step at 4.8 width and 1.2 length. (I wrote all my bra stitch lengths on a little post-it note on my machine so I don’t have to look it up every time I make a bra or panties!) The 3-step is just security to keep stitches from popping. But if your machine doesn’t have a 3-step, you can use a regular zig-zag and experiment with smaller stitch lengths.

Channeling

I know the channeling gets finicky. Readers have asked me about how I did this on previous bras so I thought I’d show in pictures!

I usually attach the channeling first, before putting in the band elastic. It’s easier to make that first pass without the elastic in the way but it adds another step and I wanted to make this simple visually.

First I lay down the channeling so its seam is right on top of the cup seam and start stitching right on that seam. To make sure I don’t accidentally stitch into the cup, I hold the channeling in my right hand, lift it up, re-arrange it as I go–while using my left hand to guide the cup seam. This has worked really well for me.

I stitch all the way to the top of the front but stop and backtack about 1/2″ before I get to the end of the underarm seam. It’s good to leave a little extra hanging off each end. This helps to finish the channel neatly later on.

After stitching the channeling I grade the seams if there are a lot of layers–and there’s quite a few here!

Before I do anything else, I close off the channeling in the front. Since the seams are still free and not topstitched down, I grab the top of the channeling with the cup seam allowances and fold everything else out of the way:

Then I stitch a really tight zigzag that almost looks like a bar-tack. Whatever it is, it needs to be secure!

The closure is invisible from the outside. (On my friend’s bra–I forgot to snap a pic of my mine!)

Time for the topstitching! I switch back to my straight stitch foot (ok, I just found out my machine calls this a “patchwork foot”). I turn the bra over and arrange the cup seams and channeling so they are folded under toward the band. If you’ve ever done an understitch on a facing, this first part is just like that. I hold the fabric on both sides a little bit taut, and start topstitching about 1/8″ away from the edge of the cup seam.

I have to keep feeling to make sure this stitch is going into the channeling. If you sewed your first pass with the channeling seam on top of the cup seam, this shouldn’t be a problem.

Then I do another line of topstitching with the first line of stitching lined up right under my foot edge. This is about 6mm on my foot. Don’t forget to stop your topstitching 1/2″ away from the underarm so you can fold it out of the way for your elastic.

Underarm Elastic

Now’s the time to put in my underarm elastic. I do my first pass just like the band elastic with the fuzzy side up. I use a bit less tension in this elastic than I did with the band.

When sewing in the elastic I have to fold away the channeling–that’s why I stopped stitching it 1/2″ away:

Before folding over the underarm elastic I put in my underwires, sliding them in from the open underarm sides toward the front.

At this point you need to decide whether you want your channeling to be closed on top of the elastic or folded into it. I’ve done both and it really depends on how thick the channeling is!

Right below my thumb is where I’m going to close the channeling with another “bar-tack” again:

I need enough room to fold down my elastic and stitch another 3-step–this is where that wire play I talked about comes in handy. I can’t tell you how many times my underwire has reached right to the fold of the elastic–a recipe for underwire and needle disaster!

After closing off the channel and stitching down the underarm elastic, this is what it looks from the outside:

Almost there! Now I attach my straps and finish off with my hook and eye. Every pattern has a different width at the end of the band for a hook & eye attachment. You usually need to adjust that to fit your particular hook and eye width before you sew in your strap elastic:

That’s it! My bras are done and I’ll be back Monday with photos and some roundup questions. Happy sewing weekend everyone!

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Interlude: Bra Straps

January 25, 2013 Comments

Hey all, I’m gonna take a little pause today before my final construction post. I’m running a little behind but I hope to be back tomorrow! In the meantime, a strap interlude…

This might seem ridiculously simple but I could never figure out which end went where through the slider. Maybe it’s because I’m lefthanded–the visuals always look backwards. So this one’s for the lefties out there!

First I cut my straps. I like to cut each about 19 inches for insurance. The left side is going to be in the back. The right side will connect to the front cup with a ring.

1. Threading the end through slider, with the wrong (often fuzzy) side of the strap facing up. I fold this bit down and stitch a secure seam.

2. Looping the right end up and over and threading it through the slider…

3. Pulling it all the way through to the left…

The straps are sewn at the end but it’s always nice to have them pre-assembled. And I’m glad I checked–I forgot to take my own advice and buy extra strap elastic! The Bra-makers notions kit includes less than 18 inches of it. So you can see in the top photo I changed my game. Thank goodness I had a small bit of my silk left from which to make straps–and they had to be small. They were made super easy thanks to Steph’s very clever rouleau tie tutorial at 3 Hours Past.

My straps are assembled similarly to the nude ones, except the adjustment is going to be in the back rather than the front. How do you like to do your straps? Do you favor the adjustment in the front or back?

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Bra-making Sew Along: Band & Cup Construction

January 24, 2013 Comments

Starting to looking like a bra now! Today I’m going to assemble the band and insert the cups.

Since I am lining the cradle of both bras, I used the lining to finish the top of the bridge. With right sides together, I stitched a 1/4″ or 6mm seam across the top. I turned this right side out, pressed and topstitched about 1/8″ away from the top.

If you don’t have a lining and interfaced this part, you can turn down the center top by 1/4″ and topstitch. Another idea: if you’re using fusible interfacing instead of a lining, you could also sew the fusing to the top of the bridge glue side up, turn and fuse for a totally hidden seam.

On my bra, I wanted the band seam to be hidden inside the lining so I sandwiched the band pieces into the cradle and lining and stitched the side seam and top of the bridge at the same time.

Then I turned it all ride side out and basted the layers together so they can be treated as one piece.

On this one I sewed the band in separately…

Now it’s time to sew in the cups. I think this is the trickiest bit by far. Everything else after this is a breeze! But I promise, that with some practice, you’ll be kicking it out!

There are a lot of different techniques for sewing in cups. I like to sew both sides with the cup on top and the cradle on the bottom and–as I mentioned yesterday–I go at it without pins.

I start with the left cup. Remember how I cut with the scallops with the lowest point at the seam? I line up that point right with the seamline on the bridge and start sewing.

The band is facing up and the right side of the cup is facing down. I sew all the way around the cup to the underarm, lining up the notches.

You can also see in the above picture how I keep the two curves opposing each other right up to the edge of the foot.

On the right cup, I start at the underarm.

When I get close to the top of the bridge, I slow down and release the presser foot a few times to rearrange the layers, so that the scallops meet just at the end of the stitching line.

If you’re having trouble with puckering, it helps to release the foot pressure every so often if the layers start to bunch together. Speaking of which, it’s totally normal to end up with a few puckers now and then. Just like sewing sleeve caps. I unpicked one bra like 5 times–ugh… That was actually my impetus to go cold turkey on pins. Since then no more puckers and I stopped cursing my machine. (I know my mom is reading this–I remember you yelling at your machine, too! There was that velvet Christmas dress…)

Happy sewing y’all. I’ll be finishing off the bra tomorrow!

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