After two sewing fails in the past two weeks, I felt like my sewjo had got up and left. So, this week I made myself cut out some panties to go with my bra. You’ve all seen the bra before. Here’s my latest matching bra and panty set.

This is the Sewy-fied Shelley bra, and my TNT Kwik Sew 2286 panty pattern, which I’ve changed up a bit by adding the lace panel to the front.

I’ve mentioned this before, and I’ll say it again – I’m spoiled now. I only want to wear matching sets of bras and panties. I had always color-coordinated everything before, but with RTW bras costing $150+, there was no way matching panties were going to happen.

Now that I have my bra fit worked out, matching sets are a must! I love sewing my own lingerie.

This time, cutting out the matching panty went without a hitch, but it wasn’t just smooth sailing from there.  I realized I didn’t have enough elastic to finish my panties the way I like, and the way the pattern says. I was wondering if it would be another no-sew week at that point.

My first thought was to tea-dye some stretch lace. I have lots of white I bought on sale. Nope, that didn’t work.

The tea gave me a lovely deep beige, but it wasn’t the same as either of the other beiges I was using. I was already using two differently hued beiges. I really didn’t want to introduce a third beige. So, two bumps on the sewing road, but I realized I must be feeling better because I had my old I’m-not-giving-up attitude.

I decided to finish the back waist band with the dark purple trim that came with the Merckwaerdigh kit. One problem solved. Although, I’m not loving the beige thread on the purple, I wasn’t up to picking it all out and starting over again.

The outlined sewing order for Kwik Sew pattern is: the gusset is sewn to the back and then the front using what is commonly called the ‘Burrito’ method, then the lace is applied to the leg openings, the sides are sewn up, and lastly the same lace is applied to the waistband. Altering the pattern, I have to change my order of sewing. The first thing I do now is attach the elastics to the waist bands. I sewed the purple trim to the back, and some nice plush black elastic behind the lace panel at the front.

Here you can see the elastic already sewn onto the waist while I’m just in process of pinning the lace to the legs. I didn’t do this on the first pair I altered and learned the hard way.

Another small change I made was to use my sewing machine’s Overcast stitch rather than a simple Zigzag stitch. That gave me a straight seam on the right side of the fabric rather than the not-perfectly-straight seam from a Zigzag stitch.

After pressing it on the right side to flatten the seam, I added one more change…

I gave the seam a bit of reinforcement by Zigzagging over the just-sewn seam. Another quick press and it looks so nice and neat.

One last little change I made was thanks to a reader. Carmen mentioned how she sews down the seams on the gusset with a Zigzag stitch – a tip she picked up from Sigrid. I thought it was a great idea. Thank you, Carmen!

In the photo above you can see a close up of the Zigzag stitching. It does two things: it reinforces that seam, and it flattens that seam much more than pressing it can.

So here’s my first pair of panties to make a matching set with my bra. The next pair will have to wait until my stretch lace gets here.

The materials I’ve used here are a mix from Bra-Makers Supply, Merckwaerdigh, and Frog Feathers. The Duoplex, Power Net, Findings, and Cotton Spandex Doubleknit are from BMS. The lace, Lycra and trim are from Merckwaerdigh. The stretch elastic is from Frog Feathers.

Happy creating!