Month: November 2014

Could It Be?

~ Michelle

That was pretty much how I was feeling. Could it be that I was one alteration away from my perfect fit? After all this time, and all these tries, could it be? I have to be honest, I was not hopeful at this point. I have wandered around close for so very long, I just thought I’d be close again. But… I got it!

100_2663

Here’s my perfectly fitting black and ivory bra. I used black and ivory because I didn’t have enough bits of either fabric for a bra in just one color. That’s how un-optimistic I was feeling. And I’m usually a the-glass-is-half-full kind of girl. Heck, if there’s water in the glass, why would anyone complain? But too many not perfects had worn me down a bit. So, I had some black duoplex and some ivory duoplex, power net, and lace (all from Bra Makers Supply), and I set out one more time.

You all know how it is, I had one alteration to make, so that really meant two, and if you’re making two, that’s really four. Every time you change one part of the pattern, you have to change the corresponding part. And every alteration I made, I feared I would mess up the fit completely.

But… IT FITS! I could just keep typing that over and over. IT FITS! IT FITS!…

I watched along with Beverly on the Craftsy class again. I love having her right there explaining and seeing how she does this or that. It’s much more fun than just pulling out the pattern instructions again.

One of the little tidbits she shows in the class is the Butterfly Effect done with lace. I decided I’d do that on this to pull together to two colors a little more.

100_2664

This shows the Butterfly Effect up close. It’s a really pretty options for lace. And of course, if you’re going to have butterflies, then you need flowers not bows. So I added a little black rosette to the top of the bridge.

100_2665

I didn’t add the rosette until after I tried it on though. There must have been some hope somewhere inside because I did do all the top stitching on this bra. Oh, but after changing threads a few times, I’d had enough of that. I still wasn’t sure it was going to fit, so… ivory thread showing on black. I’m going to have to say it’s a design feature at this point. The strap trim is something I’ve been saving for a long time – just waiting to use. This seemed like the right time. The pins on the side are to help get the wrinkles out of the bra on Catherine.

100_2666

This shows the back, showing the hooks and eyes, strap elastic, findings and all the elastics that only peek out are all in black.

Another change I made was to go with the triple hook and eye rather than the double. It really does offer more support and I’m surprised how much more comfortable it is. I had wanted to do what I saw in the Prima Donna bras I’d purchases in the past, but don’t think I’ll do that anymore. I really prefer this. I just have to learn how to get in and out of it as easily as the double hooks I’ve always worn.

One of the alterations I made on this was the bridge… and it’s perfect! Simply perfect. It comes up high enough to offer good support, but not too high as to get in the way and push away from me.

All those really nice fabrics I’ve saved in my stash for that elusive day when I had my fit down… get ready! That day has come.

Happy creating!

One More Try

~ Michelle ~ 2 Comments

I don’t know about anyone else out there, but having to wear a bra every day, I really am motivated to get the fit right. So, I decided I needed one more try. And that one more try was just the trick.

Using the half-size right in between the size I’d been working with for so long, and the next size up that was too big was brilliant! I woke up at 4:30 that morning and came downstairs to work on my bra pattern. And I have to say, after 2 years of trying, I was not really as enthused as I was say a year and half ago. I’ve had too many bras that weren’t what I wanted. I’m still wearing them, but perfection felt beyond my reach.

All that changed this week. I’ve found my size! Oh what relief. I encourage you, if you are still struggling, don’t give up.

So, let me take you back to my process.

I had what I thought was going to be my size. But I felt rather defeated thinking of the alterations I would have to make to a new cup because I knew the wire and cup size still didn’t match. The good news was this cup size is only two sizes larger than the wire size I need, and one size smaller than what I’d been using.

That got me thinking again; I knew from reading the Bra Makers Manuals that we can go up or down one wire size without changing the cradle. Okay, I was going to go up one cradle size. I traced out a 40 cradle instead of a 38. This now meant the cup I needed, which corresponds to a 42 wire was only one size away. Oh, the relief of that realization! I cut everything out and sewed it up as is – no alterations.

100_2659

Here’s the Pin Up Girls Classic pattern, as is, except I split the lower cup. There are a couple of pins in there trying to (unsuccessfully) smooth things out and get rid of the wrinkles on Catherine. This is my best fit yet. There are only a couple of minor fitting issues at this point. If you’re dealing with an Omega shape, I strongly recommend doing this – go up one cradle size. It will really help as there will be fewer alterations to do, or the ones you still do need to do will be less drastic.

100_2660

This will be one alteration I make to the cup. It gaps a little at the underarm. A tuck in the pattern there will eliminate that for future bras.

And the second alteration I will make to the pattern is the bridge. I made this one bra without any alterations to the bridge – so I didn’t use my custom bridge and it’s just too wide (I knew that) and too high. But just how much too high was it? That led to my second brain wave this week. I took my custom bridge at the full bridge height and drew 1/2″ line down from the top. Then another 1/4″ down and a second 1/4″ down.

Here’s my custom bridge with the first 1/2″ cut off. And that’s the exact amount I need to shorten it.

100_2655

Here’s a closer up picture showing the markings I made on the top of the bridge:

100_2658

I’d already snipped off the first 1/2″, so now I know how much I need to lower my bridge.

There were a couple of other things I’d said in the past I’d share, so I took pictures as I was sewing my bra. Oh, and a side note here, I signed up for Beverly Johnson’s Bra class on Craftsy and I had her explaining the steps as I was sewing. That was such fun. It was almost like having her right here with me.

100_2639

You can see here the bottom band elastic coming up under where the channeling will be sewn on. This just fits, but if it didn’t, here’s how you fix that.

100_2640

Fold the channeling over the elastic so you can see how much you’ll need to trim away. See that pink dotted line? If I needed to trim, that would be my cutting line.

100_2641

And here with the channeling out of the way again. Follow the curve of the channeling when drawing your dotted line (better than I did here) and you’ll have your exact cutting line.

I’m off to make those changes to my pattern and cut out another bra.

Happy creating!

Barb Pants With A Few Changes

~ Michelle

I’m going to start off by saying I love the Barb Pant pattern. There are only a few changes I’ve made and I’m really very impressed with it. When I tried them on for my hubby and son, I got ‘Wow.’ and ‘Sweet’, respectively.

There were a couple of changes I made though. There was an excess of material at the center back of the pants. I know that’s my shape causing that. So, one of my changes was to put a couple of darts in the back of the pant, below the waist. For my next pair, I will put the dart into the pattern and then have a nice smooth look to the back of the pant. They don’t look quite as flattering hanging backwards on Catherine.

100_2630

You can see the one dart on the back quite clearly. It has a twin on the other side, but it looks more like a fold of material in the photo. My bottom also fills them out more so the darts don’t pucker at the bottom like they do in the photo above.

This photo also shows the other change I made. After taking off the waistband (which I had sewn on and then overlocked to keep the edges from fraying), I decided I really didn’t like the waistband how it was. Being rather curvy, I needed to take in the elastic on the waistband which produced wrinkles. And it just wasn’t a look I loved. As I said last week, to me, it had a sweat pants look.

So what I did on these is I put the elastic in the back of the waistband only. You can see in the photo above I enclosed it even with a double row of stitching.

100_2624

Above you can see the elastic pinned on to the waistband. I didn’t measure, just made it the length of the waistband – which is a size smaller than the pant size I used. That was one of the other changes I made to the waistband.

100_2628

And now the elastic is all tucked in and secured. I saw this on a pair of RTW pants I own and decided to give it a try. And I really like this.

100_2629

See how much smoother the front of the pants are without the elastic? These are a Ponte and have some stretch, so this method will work for these, but a less giving material probably won’t allow these same changes.

There are a couple of puckers in the above photo at the waistband in the front that a couple of 1/4″ darts in the pattern would fix.

Pinned on Catherine

For comparison, here was the waistband before I took it off and made the changes. I really prefer the smoother front.

I’ve worn these pants a number of times, and they’re really comfortable. The Barb Pant will be on my list to sew again. And I’ll do my best to get a photo of me in them so you can see what they look like on.

Happy creating!