August | 2020 | Michelle's Creations

This post isn’t about something new I’ve made, but rather my thoughts on Lycra for making bras. I had a question from a reader why I changed my mind about Lycra. Carmen, here’s your answer. Thanks for the post idea.

A Material History

The first bra I ever made, I didn’t keep. To me, it looked terrible! You won’t even find it here on my blog. It was made from a tricot kit. And despite pinning it and taking my time, I had a terrible time sewing with tricot. And I was not new to knits. I just found tricot very hard to sew.

After that first experience, I mostly moved on to more local supplies, and being in Canada, that meant duoplex. Duoplex is wonderful and firm, and not at all challenging to sew. I do think that first experience made me shy away from Lycra as well.

However, I had a few lovely kits that had Lycra in them, so I did start to experiment a little with it. Like this lovely Sewy Rebecca. Oh, this is still an absolute favorite make of mine.

This kit was from Merckwaerdigh, and I still love her kits. However, Lycra on it’s own was not as supportive for me as duoplex.

Once I started sewing with duoplex, I kind of just stuck with it. I like the ease, and I liked the support. Although, that didn’t stop me from buying pretty kits with Lycra.

Like this.Or these. Initially, I was adding little pops of color to my bras using mostly duoplex, but adding in some Lycra over duoplex for color.

As much as I loved this bra too, I still had those kits that were all Lycra and lace. I had to figure a way to use them too.

It was then I found sheer cup lining. Layering sheer cup lining and Lycra together gives me the support I need. Even just sheer cup lining alone it supportive enough.

This bra is all sheer cup lining. I also wanted to use other fabrics too. Like this lovely red bra below. This bra is lingerie satin with sheer cup lining.

Being able to use sheer cup lining made me feel so much confident to use Lycra and other bra-making fabrics rather than only using duoplex. These other fabrics are lovely too, but I need a supportive fabric along with them.

I’ve recently bought a kit with micro duoplex in it. That will be a first for me.

Happy creating!

A New Drafting Method

Something I’ve wanted to do for the past year is learn Porcelynne‘s method of drafting bras. It looks quite different from the BMS method I’ve learned and I was intrigued.

Watching a few of Jennifer’s classes in the Great Bra Sewing Bee helped give me the push I needed to try this.

First things first, as I mentioned my last post, I needed to do a root trace to determine my wire size. Well, I actually didn’t think I really needed to do a root trace because I have all the wire sizes from BMS – they came with the Drafting course I took. Still, I wanted the experience of doing a root trace with copper wire. And I’m very glad I did.

My Results

This is my copper wire root trace on laid over a 38 Extra Long wire from BMS. And in case you’re wondering, the copper wire is much longer than my root trace.This is pretty close. I’d say it would be an exact fit – except for the upper part of the wire. This would explain why I felt the 38 wires were pinching me.

Here’s the same copper wire trace over a 40 Long wire from BMS.My trace is smaller at the bottom, but it matches the width at the top of the wire.

So, it seems I am in-between wire sizes.

After asking for some help in the Support for Bare Essentials group, it was suggested I watch this video.

After realizing I could bend my wires, I tried gently bending one of my 38 wires. I really didn’t want it to snap while doing this, so gentle was the way to go.And I have my perfect wire! And I have a whole bunch of 38 Extra Long wires, so this will be very handy to do so I can still use them.

I was also given another great tip in the Support group: Emerald Erin carries wires that are a little wider at the top.

I printed out her wire chart for her Orange wires, and perfection! And without me bending anything.The next part of the course is to make a fitting band.