Ever have one of those moments where you can’t believe what you’ve done? I’ve been trying to find a solution to one for the past week. Last you heard from me I was cloning that very pretty Fantasie Vivienne . I went for basic black, and was quite happy with how everything was tuning out. It wasn’t until I was almost done – and I mean sewing on the hooks & eyes – that I saw this piece of material flapping around. I wondered as I stopped everything I was doing, ‘What could possibly be flapping around?’

You tell me if you see what I did wrong.

Yeah, something really doesn’t look right there, does it? I can hear other comments, like Sigrid on her blog, saying ‘Ask me how I know.’ She’d had a problem in the past with some lace too, but not sewing it in upside down! Yes, that’s what I did here. The narrower part of the lace is supposed to meet the strap attachment and the wider lace is supposed to meet the bridge. That is not happening here! Oops.

So, I’ve been thinking about it all week. Can I just ‘attach’ that piece of lace anyway, and then ‘tuck’ the ‘extra’ fabric inside somewhere without making the cups too small? Can I take out the stitches on the cross cup seam and sew the lace in the correct way? I’ve ruled out taking the cups out because there is trimming done under the underarm area after the elastic is put on. Hmm. I’m just waiting for that perfect solution to come to me to make this wearable, so it’s not quite there.

Other than that rather glaring problem which makes the bra unwearable, it didn’t turn out too badly.

Being the first time I made this style, I was guessing at what order things would be sewn in. There’s a drawback to cloning a new pattern. If there are different elements than previous patterns, you may have a surprise – like me!

Everything was fine here in the side view. I actually quite liked the fit for the most part, so this is definitely going to be a pattern I make again… with bold, high-lighted, over-sized instructions for the correct way to attach the lace!

Here’s another area where I had a bit of a surprise. I wasn’t thinking when I ‘added’ the elastic width to the little dip in the back where the hooks & eyes attach. When I went to attach the hooks, it looked too wide. Hmm. Thinking again, ‘What did I do here?’ Then I remembered, so a quick erase on the pattern, and it will be a two-set of hooks and eyes on the next one. But compared to the lace mess-up, this is no big deal. I’ll probably also bring those back straps in closer to the middle.

And this was a pleasant surprise while sewing the bra. I really like how the cup seam sits right over the bridge-band seam on the cradle. I thought that was a very pretty design element.

So, that’s my first attempt at the Vivienne clone. I should have made a tester, but was a bit too confident. Now that I’ve been bitten, I may be a bit more cautious in the future.

I am very excited about a beautiful set of material I purchased. It was one of those items I acted on quickly because the last time I watched something in Merckwaerdigh‘s store, it was gone the next time I looked for it. So this is going to be a future bra:

Isn’t that lovely?

And one final loose end – my tray. Well, it seems my dear husband has an opinion on how I finish the tray. He didn’t like what I had proposed, or how it was it was looking. All work on the tray came to a complete halt. I didn’t like what he was suggesting either, so we were at an impasse.

I was dropping my son off at work one day, and dropped into the store there. And I just happened to see a large tray painted all black with a rooster on the bottom of the tray. That gave me an idea. I’m going to paint the whole tray black, same as the cart it sits on, and then I’m going to put a brighter paper pattern on the bottom of the tray instead of the decoupage. My hubby isn’t thrilled yet, but he’s not totally against it either. So, I think this will be my tray solution. Pictures to come.

Happy creating!