BHST2

A Marathon of Muslins

~ Michelle ~ 4 Comments

I was so excited to finally have a bra that fit with the bridge going all the way back that I made a whole bunch of bra muslins to try on over that bra. I went through almost all of my patterns – there are a few that I likely won’t ever make – and I sewed up muslins for test fittings.

This first bra muslin I made was a brand new pattern just released. It was Orange Lingerie’s new pattern, the Marlborough pattern.

Marlborough

You can see here the fit looks like it will be really close and I won’t have to do very much in the way of alterations. The Marlborough doesn’t actually list my size in the size range, but I know all about finding the right size by the wire size. So using my ever-so-used BMM chart, I found the correct cup size to fit into my band.

Great! I marked the muslin where I’d need to reduce it a bit at the bottom where it overlaps the seam allowance on the actual bra, and pinned it to the pattern for when I’m ready to tackle making this bra.

Shelley

Next it was the Pin-Up Girls Shelley pattern. Again, the depth looks good, but it’s not perfect. I marked where the seam lines fell under the muslin, and I marked these right on the muslin. It’s now pinned to the pattern and ready for the alteration stage as well.

After Shelley, I did the Pin-Up Girls classic pattern.

PUG Classic

You can see I also wrote the pattern name and size on the muslin.

After I finished with my Pin-Up Girls, it was time to try a few of Merckwaerdigh’s patterns. This is where I had to do a re-do.

BHST2 B too small

I started with BHST2, but you can see the cup is too small in this size for me. It just won’t meet all those seam lines under it. I quickly traced off the next size up and that one was fine.

BHST2 B

This one gives me all the depth I need, and I’ll alter the pattern to fit my shape. Again, I marked on the muslin what changes I’ll have to make and pinned it to the pattern.

For some reason I didn’t trace of the CUPL-16 pattern I have. I must admit I was running out of steam by this point.

I did trace off my Sewy Rebecca. I wasn’t sure about the size,  and the size I chose was actually too big. So my next muslin of this will be smaller.

Sewy R 1

You can see here the cup is clearly too big.

I was really tired after all this, but have a great place to tackle each of these bras now – one at a time.

Happy creating!

Kwik Sew 3300

~ Michelle ~ 5 Comments

This is such a pretty style. Here is my Kwik Sew 3300:

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I think it looks so pretty with the black and white theme. The lace was a gift, and the floral stretch lace is from a local fabric store. All other material supplies are from Bra Makers Supply.

It’s pretty, but there were a couple of fitting issues. One really wasn’t a biggie. This bra  had the straps pinned up about 2 inches here in the picture – so I shortened those.

The bigger fitting issue is the upper part of the cup is loose. I could pinch a quarter-inch out of the upper cup. That shouldn’t be too hard to fix on the pattern, and thankfully it doesn’t show when I wear it. This style actually fits similarly to how a foam cup bra fits.

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You can see here where I pinned the cup.

The steps I took beforehand really helped me to get the cup to fit properly. Here’s what I did for this bra (and some of this is from  past posts, but I’m putting it all together here):

The first thing I did was sew up a muslin for the cups. I did this twice. After looking at the pattern pieces, and picking the one I thought was closest to my size, I sewed up my first muslin. I used some scrap cotton I had left over from a skirt muslin I’d made. On this first one I could see how much I would need to adjust the pattern along the wire line. Remember, I my wear one size bra for the cups, but my wire size does not match that – it’s quite a bit smaller. So that was my first adjustment.

After I altered the pattern I sewed up another cup muslin. Again, I used some left over cotton, but this time it was from one of my moulages. This second one I pinned over an existing well-fitting bra. It was a pretty good fit at this point. But still needed a bit of adjustment. On this second muslin I drew where the seam lines fell underneath it.  Again, dealing with an Omega shape means most patterns don’t fit the way they are.

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At this point I was pretty sure I had the right size and shape for me. And I was really close.

This bra has a vertical seam, so no upper and lower cup, but instead and inside and outside cup. I was using lace for both the inside and outside cups, so I lined them both with sheer cup lining. That made both cups completely non-stretch to give it the support it needed. I’ve done this before on all lace bras, and it works great. I usually don’t use Lycra because I don’t find it offers the support needed, but using this sheer cup lining would be a great option for under Lycra too.

At this point I was feeling quite confident that this bra was going to fit without any issues. You see, most of my issues have been the bridge and the adjustments I needed for the Omega shape. I haven’t run into this looseness before.

I didn’t use the band that came with the pattern. I used the one I know fits wells. I now have a custom bridge that is working great for me and I wasn’t going to mess with that. As well, I drafted the cradle on my band to fit a Vertical wire and a custom bridge. After all the work to get the band to fit so well, there was no way I was going to try another band! All I was really wanted was to insert the 3300 cups into my band for a different look.

Even though this bra pattern still needs some tweaking, the steps I took ahead of time really were worth all the effort. And if you have challenges with fitting, I really recommend this method of fitting the bra cups. A shout out to Sigrid for sharing this. And after much searching, I realized it was not in her blog, but on Pattern Review. She explained this when she reviewed Merckwaerdigh’s BHST2 pattern. Really a great tip!

Happy Creating!