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!

I love a diagonally-seamed cup because it is especially pretty in lace, with an unbroken line of scallops across the top. But it’s been fun to play around with seam directions for different style and shape options.

In today’s tutorial, I’ll share two pattern variations you can make to your cup: 1. adding an additional seam to your lower cup for a 3-piece pattern and 2. changing the entire cup to a vertically-seamed one. I’m using the 2nd variation for my own bra which you will see in action next week!

A tip for these alterations: The main seams in a cup should cross over your bust point. In some patterns, there is a notch at that point–usually right at the apex–if not, find it on your bra and mark it on your pattern so you know where it is. After your alterations, walk your pieces and double check that the lengths of the actual seam lines match.

Adding a Seam to the Lower Cup

ONE: For a second seam in the lower cup, mark a line going from your bust point down to the bottom seam line.

It doesn’t matter where the line ends at the bottom so feel free to experiment! In this example, I’m dividing the lower cup into two relatively equal pieces, which will result in a seam that runs perpendicular to the main seam.

TWO: Cut the pattern piece along the lines and trace your two new pieces. Draw in a smooth, even curve connecting the top and bottom seamlines. The curve should be fairly subtle.

THREE: That’s it–your new pieces! Don’t forget to walk the seamlines and add 1/4″ allowances to the new seam.

Vertical Seam Alteration

For this alteration, first mark where you want your seam to start and end. A vertical seam doesn’t have to be straight up and down–you could slant inwards or outwards. I found my starting points by marking these positions on a previous bra. It just so happens that my pattern–Pin-up Girls Classic–has a notch right at the center bottom, which is usually where a straight vertical seam starts.

ONE: Mark the bust point of your pattern.

TWO: On both pieces, mark in lines on the top and bottom cups, going from the desired starting point of your new seam to the bust point. I rotated the bottom cup in this example so I could draw a straight line down the two.

THREE: Split these pieces apart on the lines. You should now have four pieces total.

FOUR: Line up the top and bottom pieces along the sides until the seamline along the sides of the cup form smooth curves.

The cross-cup seamlines will match each other for a short distance, but will not come together at the bust point. Trace off the these new inner and outer pieces.

FIVE: Depending on your pattern style and where the apex is, one side may have smaller “dart” than the other. In this case, the outer cup has the smaller dart, so draw your new seam line on this side first. Draw in a smooth curve connecting the two upper and lower pieces close to the bust point.

On the inner cup, draw another curve of equal length. Because the “dart” on this side is so wide, the curve will not go around the apex. (You need to take some out from that “dart”, if that makes sense!) You can use a measuring tape to find the right curve length.

ETA: The flatter these curves, the less length (and volume) the cup will have. In your fitting, experiment with them to find the shape you like. If you’d like to pull things in more, you can experiment with making the inner curve slightly flatter than the outer curve–a good tool to use in shaping!

SIX: Smooth out all the new seam lines, mark your bust point notch, and add seam allowances.

In the above illustration I’m also smoothing off that strap extension from my pattern, because I’m not going to use a fabric strap.

There ya go–a totally new cup!

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I hope these are clear, so let me know if you have any questions!

Have a beautiful weekend, all. And get ready to start the engines–on Monday we’ll finally get to sewing and I’ll start with some cutting and layout tips. See you then!

Yay, the light came out today! My friend came over and we squeezed in some good photos and an instructive fitting session.

So these are my super purdy “bra muslins”. Or bra toiles, what have you! Cute, huh? One for my friend and one for myself, since I’m trying out a new cup.

If you’d like to try a fitting bra, here’s one way to approach it. I make a very quick bra using some leftover bra materials and scrap. And no elastic. If this is your first bra, you can get some practice on those curvy seams without the pressure!

Some suggestions for the cups: If you can spare some of your cup fabric for a test run, perfect! If not, try using some woven scraps like cotton muslin or quilting cotton. But testing your cups in a stable woven will obviously only work if you’re making your bra from a stable fabric. If your chosen cup fabric stretches–including stretch lace or any type of fabric with spandex/lycra–and you don’t plan on lining the entire cup, the fit will be different. The closer you can get to testing your cups in the same or similar fabric to your actual bra materials, the better. Make sense?

For my bras, I cut the cups from leftover Duoplex. I think I have eeked out about eight tester bras from one Bra-makers Supply kit. You may have enough of your cup fabric to do a test run, too! I cut the cradle (or bridge) from muslin scrap, since that needs to be stable. I cut the band from the lycra and powermesh I plan to use. Every band fabric behaves differently and I often need to take in some fabrics depending on stretch. I’ve unbasted the bands and re-used them if they fit!

I won’t get into construction details until we make our bras, but here’s how I put it all together.

Sew the cups together. I added a seam to the center front of the bridge in case I need to adjust the spacing.

Then sew the cradle to the band. Some patterns have a side seam, some don’t. And now you get to sew those cups into the cradle. This part is tricksy at first but don’t be shy! I’ll have some tips for you down the road.

And this is the really fun part. To get this to fit, find a way to get the underwire on that cradle seam. It will help pull the cup to the right position. You could baste in some of your channeling to the cup/cradle seam allowance with a long stitch. This is what I do. It doesn’t have to be perfect and you can re-use the channeling later. (Cut it a little bit longer if you want to save it.) Alternatively, you could try sewing a tiny tunnel right on your seam allowance. (Thanks Katherine, for a genius idea!)

Baste in the hook and eye. I do this pretty loosely. To simulate straps I baste in ribbon or seam tape in the back.

That’s it! I took some photos on my friend today and I’ll be posting these by the weekend in the Flickr group. I’ll be brave and post mine, too!

How is everybody doing? Have you sorted out your size and pattern? And don’t forget, Norma is here so if you have a burning bra-making question for her, don’t hesitate to ask! (And you are welcome to email me if it feels hard to ask here.)

Today and tomorrow I’m going to prep the pattern and make a test bra for my friend. I’ve been drafting different bras so I needed a quick and dirty way to test them without sewing in the elastic. So I’ll share how I’ve been doing that. There are some things you can’t predict in a tester bra or cups, and you may just want to skip this part. But if you want to save your materials for the good stuff and do some fitting and styling fun next week, give it a whirl!

Before I get to tracing, let’s take a look at our pattern pieces. This is an illustrated scan of the pieces in Elan 645, and most of your patterns will be in some combination of these pieces.

If you are working with a three-piece cup (such as the Danglez patterns), sometimes the lower cup consists of two pieces, or there will be a side panel that reaches into the strap. A couple of the suggested patterns also include a fabric strap piece.

You’ll also notice that the band and cradle can have various seams, some with a seam below the cup, some with a side seam, or both. These are mostly just style differences.

tracing the pattern

When tracing your pattern don’t forget to transfer pattern markings like notches, direction of stretch (the ‘grainline’) and bust point. I’m going to trace a 32D from the Elan pattern.

The Elan pattern also has a little facing piece for the top of the cup. I might not use it but I traced it anyway.

For my initial pattern, I’m using this vellum paper to trace off but later I’m going to transfer the pattern to oak tag or something like card stock. I find it much easier and more accurate to weigh down the patterns and trace around them with chalk, rather than pin and cut. You could do this straight away if you wanted.

the seam allowances

Now there’s one more step I like to do and that’s draw in the seamlines. This is certainly not an essential thing, but I find them helpful when making fitting adjustments. Some of you may have the Danglez or another European pattern which comes without seam allowances so you’ll need to add them on.

Bras use small, precise seam allowances. The major seams are all 1/4″ (6mm), and trust me, these small allowances help with sewing precision, especially in sewing convex to concave curves! They also help the curves to lay smoothly.

The underarm seam on cups and top of the band are 3/8″ (1cm), for 3/8″ picot elastic.

(Totally random prop with my little Czech car.) And for the Danglez cups:

The hemline and bottom of the entire band is 1/2″-5/8″ (12-15mm) for your band elastic. Check your pattern to see if it has specifics. For the Danglez pattern, add the width of the elastic you plan to use.

The center back and the strap seam near it do not have seam allowances.

Everything else is 1/4″ (6mm). The center front of the band is either cut on fold or has a seam allowance–check your pattern to make sure! (ETA: I totally goofed and had 1/4″ at 8mm before–I still don’t think in metric!)

Alrighty, I’m ready to cut and sew a test bra! I hope to have photos of the process by tomorrow but it’s been abysmally dark and rainy here. (Bad photo light… bad.)

Radical, huh? Actually, the dye I used on my white lace was named “silver grey”, and on my dye chart was a pretty pale silver but turned out a very dark lavender grey (the water was purple!). I’m still a newb with dyes but it’s easy and fun and I like getting surprise colors.

The pieces

Just so I don’t get the two ends of the lining confused I put a pin in the end that’s going to be sewn into the crotch seam. (This end is marked with a dotted line at the seamline on the pattern.)

1. Sew the front and back seams

Pick up the main pieces just as they are and take them right to the machine and sew the seams on each side. (Assuming they’re already right sides together.) You can either serge or zig-zag these together–the seam allowances are 3/8″ (1cm), which allows for some of the edge to cut off if using a serger. I like using a really narrow 3-thread stitch on my serger because it’s soft and I think it looks and feels better in lace or sheer fabrics. (Even if I’ve zig-zagged, I trim the seams down to 1/4″.) But that’s up to you!

2. Stitch the trim ends together

Sew/serge the ends of each trim piece together with a 3/8″ allowance.

If you like to have the free edge of the lining finished with a serger, do that now. (I forgot! It won’t ravel so it can be left raw, too!)

3. Sew the crotch seam

You can see my liner fabric doesn’t want to be flat…

Sew the front, back and liner in one “sandwich”. In the top photo you can see the ladyshorts are wrong side out, the front is on bottom, the back is in the middle, and the crotch lining is on top. The wrong side of the crotch lining piece is facing out. Again this can be serged or zig-zagged (it will be completely hidden). I usually like to serge, but sometimes it can be hard to send three layers through the serger without one layer bunching. When I was first practicing serging delicate laces or knits, I’d first sew a long basting stitch on my sewing machine to keep the layers in place and then serge.

4. Baste the lining

Now fold the lining toward the front and baste it to the edge of the lace.

5. Add the trim

There’s just a tiny bit of ease in the legs and waist so I pin the trim at a couple of spots to try to even out the fullness. In this photo I “half” the waist trim and mark the center front. The seamed side is sewn to the back seam and the pinned side is sewn to the front.

Place the edge of the elastic trim so that it overlaps the waist by 1/4″ and start sewing with a narrow zig zag right in that overlap. Sometimes you have to stop every couple of inches to rearrange the layers.

In these pictures, I’m stretching the lace trim a bit, holding it down to the edge of the fabric and then letting it relax as it goes through the machine. I use my left hand to ease the fabric into the elastic and the feed dogs do the rest of the work. In other words, I’m trying not to pull on everything as it goes under the presser foot. If you stitch while pulling, the elastic trim stays stretched and you want the trim to keep most if not all of its original elasticity. It’s much more comfortable! (I really have to thank Katherine from SewBlooms for sharing this elastic-sewing tip with me.)

Repeat for the legs.

And this is what it looks like on the inside!

Optional little tip: I like to do one last little securing step, a little something I learned from my store-bought undies. I like to flatten the seam allowance on the edges of the lace trim by zig-zagging over it a couple of times. This is also a way to secure the thread tails or chains.

That’s it! Pretty and comfy!

Download the Rosy Ladyshorts here.

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