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A Little Blush for Evening

By on March 23, 2012 in Lingerie & PJs
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In between travels and springing and birthdays and gardening, I was able to squeeze in a new lounge set.

Doesn’t that sound better than pjs? And that’s exactly what I do in them–I lounge a lot more than I care to admit. (How about right now?) Adding more of these to my drawers is making me plain happy. Feeling comfy and pretty and having some variety in my schlepsleepwear = bonus.

{And apologies for the grainy photos but this is what happens when one shoots in shade at an extreme ISO and then tries to expose afterward in software. Even though I could spend hours playing with all the filters and plugins for Aperture. So much cool stuff out there.}

Pattern: The set is from Burda November 2009, #129 and #132.

Details: I made the pajama trousers for my last set and they’re super easy, a simple drawstring pant which I’ve now adjusted for a better fit. It’s embarrassing how easy these are. Seriously, like less than two hours to cut and sew at my snail pace.

At first I thought I’d make another version of my kimono-sleeved pajama top but this fabric doesn’t quite have the stretch for a hip band. So instead I went for the wrap Burda top from the same issue. It’s a pretty simple wrap top with a shawl collar, and piping is sandwiched in between the collar and facing. I almost left out the piping but in digging around my ribbon box I found enough of this coral charmeuse bias tape that I’d made for something else. You can see the facing doesn’t quite want to fold in neatly but these are pjs and this fabric is too slithery to want to stay anywhere in place.

Fabric: Now I’m going to share a secret: polyester! This is a satin-type polyester knit from Gorgeous Fabrics, described as “70 denier microfiber jersey”. It looks like silk jersey, and feels a lot like it, but was much, much less expensive. And easy to wash and dry without wearing it down. (In my experience, washing silk jersey aggressively really messes with it.) The noticeable difference between silk and polyester is the static cling, which is the last thing that holds me back from drapey polyesters–and this fabric wants to cling. I’ve been trying to educate myself on types of fabrics for lingerie. Other than silk, obviously, there’s a lot of nylon and polyester, especially for bras, with terms like tricot, denier, microfiber coming up a lot. (You’d also see these in activewear.) With some of these fabrics, you have to let go of old stereotypes. There are polyesters that breathe and microfibers that feel very fine and soft to touch. And these will make some fine summer pjs–very, very cool on the skin.

It was nice to have an easy-peasy sort of “in between” project after all the work on my fur coat. We all need those palette cleansers now and then, right? Now it feels like a matter of weeks before the Texas summer dawns on me, so I’m strategizing, strategizing, strategizing. The onslaught of spring has sent me into deep spring cleaning and organizing mode on every front. Throwing out, compiling yard sale items. It’s even trickled down to computer folder organization (what a mess…). And I decided it was time to refresh my blog with a different design. More palette cleansing! I’ve been working on it offline quite a bit and it feels much more like me, much more like how I want to be blogging into the next year. It’s not up yet, but sooon.

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Byzantine Lingerie Set

By on January 17, 2012 in Lingerie & PJs
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That is no country for old men…

This set turned out much more engraved and ancient-looking than I anticipated. I was thinking it’d be just a step up from my first two bras, a lacey black number with a bit of nude accent. But these fabrics were much less shy in person than in their online pics. The lace has a strong horizontal medallion design with metallic threads, and the lycra leans in a more bronze-taupe than nude direction. It’s hard to convey metallics in photos but it’s pretty dramatic.

As I was cutting it out, I could see I’d have to play intentionally with the strong; otherwise it’d go in the direction of Atlantic City bling. Not that I have anything against that… ironically. I was telling Derek, “this thing is going to be, kinda, um… Byzantine! Yeah.” Historic bling! And of course we immediately started discussing Yeats and what that might have to do with bras. Put two former lit grads together and you get lots of obscure writer jokes. (“Prufrock’s, like, my mantra!“)

Aesthetically, I’m in love. And at the moment, I feel I have found one of my “callings” as a dressmaker. I feel pretty stress-free about making lingerie and even possibly wasting fabric on experiments. Okay, bras don’t consume much anyway, but I also love working small and up close. (My favorite photos are macros of things like insect legs and iris veins.)

I still have some things to sort out fit-wise. The bra pattern is Pin-up Girls Classic bra in a 32B. In my last make of this I’d worked out a vertical seamed cup and for this new bra, I’d intended to make the entire cup of lace. Unfortunately the design was too directional and the repeat pattern too large to cut mirroring pieces. So I went back to the original horizontal seam and used lycra for the bottom cup. I still had a bit of lace left to squeeze out for the front band and bridge.

I’m learning that every fabric and lace requires little construction decisions along the way. I kinda like the puzzle. For example, even just a couple of mm difference in elastics might mean trimming or lengthening parts of the pattern or working around it. I may have jumped in too fast with such different fabrics than my last two bras but I’ve learned a bit more about bra fabrics. I had to rip out every seam at least once. (Ripping out serged stitches is a dream compared to the 3-step zig zag.)

These fabric and notions were all from e-lingeria. They have the loveliest stretch laces so I ordered a few at once to make the shipping from Germany worthwhile. Their kits for bras and panties include what they call “lycra” for both cups and bands, and it feels kinda like the lycra fabric in bike shorts. It’s kinda thick compared to other bra fabrics I’ve browsed. I’m assuming it’s nylon and stretches like its got about 10% lycra. As a band fabric, it’s quite comfy and good enough for support in a smaller-cupped bra.

Because it was so stretchy I figured I’d need to stabilize it for the cup. Thankfully I’d ordered some extra meterage of sheer nylon tricot, which I used as a second layer and lining. I got the idea to enclose the seam in the lining from a tutorial at Summerset’s blog. My results look clean but made for a very bulky seam, and after topstitching the seam became wavy and rigid.

And in the end, the lining didn’t seem to prevent the cup from growing in size. I probably should’ve just interfaced them instead. Or perhaps next time will have to cut the pattern smaller to accommodate stretch.

The matching panties are from Merckwaerdigh Mix 30. I like the general shaping of these–they fit like lower-cut briefs, and would be easy to change around to other styles.

I guess my lesson learned is that stretchy cup fabric does not make a good beginning bra experience. Just be warned, if you ever go for one of the ready-packaged e-lingeria kits. Kits are a great way to start because you get all the elastics and hooks and things that match. I wasn’t too happy with the elastic quality of these kits, either. (The elastic in the panties lost all their stretch after one wearing.)

On the notion-y goodness front, Wonder Tape is my new sewing BFF. (That and bra pads, which will make this bra wearable!)

I kept seeing folks on sewing boards extolling its goodness but had no idea what it was, either. It’s a roll of double-sided sticky tape in a teensy 1/8″ width that later washes out. It’s a great thing to have around if you make alterations a lot, too–like hemming.

Phew. That was a lot. That’s what I get for not blogging for two weeks. And with that I’ll leave you with my favorite bra of the week:

This is a simple but lovely long-line bra by Fortnight Lingerie. They’re a cut-and-make boutique company out of Toronto, and used to have an Etsy shop until recently. (You can some of their pretty things at Lille.) A friend of mine asked me what these kind of vintage-style bras were called, having noticed them popping up more frequently in fashion. A long-line is basically like a regular bra, except the band that goes around the cups is wider. It’s definitely a comfortable, supportive option for bigger cups without needing underwires, and I’m glad they’re getting a revival and making their way out of a niche market. Plus they’re just so dang cool.

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The Hidden Things

By on December 23, 2011 in Inspiration Files, Lingerie & PJs
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Oh Austin, I love you.

{Sign on Silk Road Fabrics.}

Something about this struck me as very typical Austin. That people here who don’t generally suffer from workaholism. That there are still places one has to find by accident, or in this case rely on word of mouth for opening hours.

Austin is one of those rare cities that has the kind of places one must stumble upon. Groovy restaurants that haven’t been Yelp-ed and mapped and Twittered to death. It’s got a fair share of the Secret South. (There’s an art collective literally hiding in a forest.) The sign might be spray-painted, the pedestrian traffic nil, but those homemade Mexican grandmama tortillas are the secret everyone loves to keep secret, or just recommend the old-fashioned way. It’s one of the reasons Derek and I gravitated here. We always call it a haven for creative people; it’s urban but incredibly easy to be an artist and live an artistic lifestyle without a competitive strain to prove oneself.

Silk Road used to be just a walk away from our neighborhood, in a lovely little cottage that was torn down a couple months ago. (Sigh, no more fabric sources for me that don’t require a driving haul through a labyrinth of Austin traffic.) Long before I got back into sewing I used to browse the exquisite silks and walk out with a couple glass buttons. They have gorgeous linens too–my first-ever fabric purchase in Austin eventually became the wide-leg trousers. Last year they moved deep into the East Side, still a source of hidden creativity despite upscale development. I had to turn around twice at the train tracks before I realized the store was inside the Flatbed coop.

Now here’s a place I’ve heard about but never visited. The closed doors of Silk Road sent me wandering instead around this heavenly mothership of all things printmaking.

All in all, a very Austin experience… where you end up when you were looking for something else.

Anyhow, this would’ve been the one local place I’d find some lovely lace trims for Sherry’s Ruby Slip. I’ll have to wait. I’m finding a bit of pleasure in that, too–the pleasure of the waiting, of finding the one thing that can’t be found by anyone else.

This is about lingerie, I guess, in a roundabout way. In lieu of a slip, I made a new bra over the weekend. I wanted to sew another one fairly soon after my first try, to refine fit and design changes while the experience was still fresh in my mind.

It’s still plain and super cutesy pink, but I wanted to use up the fabric and notions I got from Bramakers Supply to test my changes. I tried changing the pattern to a more vertical seam and went to a full-band bra. I also went down a cup size, which fit just perfectly despite my worries on the first bra. (My first was a modified 32C, which as it turns out was a bit of wishful thinking!)

My sewing will stop for two weeks as we travel abroad, but my first order of sewing business in the New Year will be a luxe version of the bra from this lace-like gilded lycra. It came all the way from Germany via e-lingeria.de and took almost two months, but I am so pleased. Gorgeous stuff.

Have a wonderful holiday, and I hope that true and meaningful secrets are revealed to you!

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Lounge Set in Brushstrokes

By on December 6, 2011 in Lingerie & PJs, Patternmaking
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My new lounge set came together last week. I feel like a Hundertwasser painting.

Or perhaps a tropical soldier?

But this head to toe print is only going inside the house! I wanted to photograph these a week ago but the weather has been downright gloomy and dark for days. (I’m not complaining, though! We’ve needed the rain terribly.)

I went ahead with my idea to design one based on a New Look pattern, giving me an excuse to further tweak my t-shirt pattern beyond recognition. This version at Behind the Seams first drew my attention to the New Look pattern, probably because the fabric was in a similarly swishy print. I liked how she used bands for the sleeves and an exposed facing for the neckline rather than bindings so I did the same.



I also copied the idea to make a flat hip band rather than New Look’s ruched/gathered look. It would be very easy to change to a ruched band if I were to make this again. I originally cut the band to be two inches narrower than my total hip measurement. That was a wild guess–I know nothing about negative ease guidelines–so I basted it together for a test and then took out another three inches.

The original pattern is pretty cheap but I like a challenge now and then, and this was pretty easy to draft. I’ve been playing a lot with Burda Style’s Lydia pattern over the last year and a half, and at one point came up with a dolman-sleeved top that I love and wear quite a bit. You can see here how I used the dolman top as the basis for the PJ top:

I also have a skin-tight bodice block I drafted in Illustrator way back when, but never got around to using. I finally figured out that I could simply use it as a ruler of sorts–to see where my waist, bust and other important lines are and get an idea of the ease in a pattern. (I have a paper version too.)

I really love how this turned out, and in a next (and there will be a next!) version I’ll refine the sleeve shaping. As it is, the underarm curve is just a bit too sharp and the sleeves a little narrower than I’d planned.

The pants were a very simple drawstring-waist pattern from Burda November 2009 (#131). Although they recommended silky wovens, I decided to risk it as a jersey pattern–good enough for bedtime!

The drawstrings are attached to elastic, a detail I’ve seen in other patterns (like my watercolor dress), which I love. It allows the comfort of elastic to hold things up, with the ability to tighten or loosen with the drawstrings.

Most of all I just love how this fabric feels. It’s a lovely cotton lycra that I bought specifically for PJs and has a nice weight with the bonus of a soft flannel-like texture on the wrong side. Perfect for staying cozy!

(Oh yeah, I hemmed these to my perfect inseam, but underestimated the jersey’s desire to lengthen. This seems to happen to me on every knit garment. Must plan on this more.)

Sweet dreams, all!

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