Pattern Review

Yet Another McCalls 6844

~ Michelle

When I first saw read about the McCalls 6844 and its high recommendations – rated best pattern of 2013 on Pattern Review – I knew I wanted to make one for myself. I didn’t think I’d make a second one, let alone a third one. And I’m not done yet.

Like the second cardigan I made, this one isn’t for me. This current one is a thank you for a good friend who did some work for my husband and me that I just don’t have the skills to do. She loved my cardigan, so I said I’d make her a cardigan too. It seemed like a fair trade to me.

I used the same material as I’d used for my first cardigan, but a different color this time. It’s a lovely soft Rayon/Bamboo knit. It’s just dreamy to feel – so soft.

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I didn’t do anything differently on this one. My friend is taller than me, so after measuring I didn’t have to shorten the sleeves, nothing. Everything was good as it was. Isn’t that the best?

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And the side view, showing the flounce so nicely. It really does have and give a lovely shape.

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Here’s the back. I love the rich deep color this cardigan has. It’s really lovely. My friend was thrilled too. She loved it.

Lastly, I had a bit of fun this past week. A good friend of the family is a producer, and every once in a while he calls on us to be in different projects he’s doing. Last year my husband and I had a lot of fun with parts in a movie. It was great fun to go to a theater for our own movie premiere. What fun. This past week we were called on again. However, I felt I’d been demoted quickly. First, I was going to be a Dr., and then a nurse. Well, I ended up as a patient.

Tracy & me acting

We did have fun though. Here I am with another good friend, who just happened to get the nurse’s role. This photo caused a bit of a stir on Facebook. All my friends who don’t know both of us, thought there must be something wrong with me. The texts started while I was still at the hospital. We put a caption on there saying, Look. We’re both smiling. All is good. We’re just acting.

Happy creating!

A New Cardigan

~ Michelle

It was way back in February when I heard about this cardigan. Andrea from Satin Bird Designs posted about it on her blog saying how she was thinking of making it. She also said how it was rated best pattern of 2013 on Pattern Review. I picked up the pattern right away – it’s McCall’s 6844. Like Andrea, I lost weight and had to give up my favorite cardigan. I bought one a year ago, and didn’t love it like I’d loved my old, now-too-big one.

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But this cardigan looked charming. I knew I’d love it the moment I saw it. I made View C, the same one shown on the front.

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Here’s my version. I bought this material back in the spring, and am so glad I did. I actually didn’t have quite enough when I cut it all out. I had to go and buy more material for the facing, and unfortunately this material was gone. Since I couldn’t find the same material for the facing, I decided to do some color-blocking.

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Here’s the underside of the facing showing. I really love that pop of deep color coming out! It was between this and bright red. I decided on this because there’s a black design in it, where the red was a solid color. I thought the black would pull the two materials together more.

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This shows the detailing on both materials closer up. I really love this!

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Here’s the jacket from the side. I love the peplum on it. It fits perfectly too. I pulled out my sloper and compared the length for the waist and for the arms. I thought it would be a good way to finally use my sloper.

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And from the back. I really love this cardigan. I wore it to work the day after I finished it and had that wonderful experience when someone asks, ‘Where did you get that?’ Isn’t that the best feeling? And I’ve worn it a few times since that first day, and every time I wear it, I’m asked where I got it. That really is the best feeling.

My cardigan is looser fitting than the model’s on the front of the pattern. I’m two different sizes, so I chose the larger size to make it not as fitted. I thought about what I wanted and didn’t want a close fitting cardigan. Hers doesn’t look like it would wrap around her much at all. It looks quite fitted. Mine does wrap around a bit at the front, and I like that too. I have a few RTW cardigans that aren’t designed to wrap around the body at all, and barely touch at the center of the body. I was told they’re called Toppers. I prefer a little more coverage and being able to wrap myself up if I feel chilly.

As well, the pattern is listed as Petite, but the pattern pieces are all marked where to shorten for Petite. I made the size without adjusting for petite although I did shorten the arms where they were marked to shorten for Petite.

I like this pattern so much, I’m entertaining View B or D next.

I’m adding a P.S. to this post. I had a request for a picture of me in my cardigan. So, here are a couple of pictures of me in my cardi.

me and cardi front

You can see in this the overlap action in the front. I wanted this. I’m always cold, and like feeling wrapped up.

me and cardi back

And the back. I love the peplum. It a cute flirty touch.

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!

I’m Copying Again

~ Michelle

I’ve come full circle in my blogging. I started off with a blog called I’m a Copy Cat. Well, it’s been over a year of bra-making and I’d promised myself that even if I was hugely successful at bra-making, once a year I buy a good quality bra and copy it. I don’t know that I’ve been hugely successful, but I certainly can  make a bra.

So I went back to the boutique and bought one of those bras I’d tried on and treated myself.

Vivienne Fantasie

Here’s the bra I bought – but that’s not me in the picture. This is a very pretty bra, and I do like how supportive it is. It’s a Fantasie Vivienne in berry.

Once I got it home, something was bothering me a little. You know, just one of those nagging things in the back of your mind. Then I realized what it was – the underwires weren’t as big as some of the Prima Donna’s I’ve had in the past. The Prima Donna’s are really too big on me, but this one is only about a size too big.

I couldn’t figure this out. From everything I looked at in size charts, the wire should have been the same size of wire as the Prima Donna’s.

To begin, I got my stash of wires out and laid them over the bra’s channeling. I wasn’t getting a match though. This was really bothering me, so out came the seam ripper and I opened the channeling under the arm. I know how to fix it again, so I thought why not? Although I will say it was the first time I’ve ever ripped out stitches on a new bra!

I took out the wire and to my great surprise, it’s a Vertical wire! I was SO very surprised by that. I had to be sure though, so I went to Bra-Makers Supply’s web page and printed out their forms for Vertical wires. Just look under Information to Download, and it’s in that list.

Interestingly, the wire in the bra wasn’t quite a 44VW, but not a 42VW either. Just slightly bigger than the 42VW wire. When I tried the Vertical wires, I was informed that a 40VW corresponds to a 38 wire. I found the 40VW a bit small, so 42VW would be the size for me. And I find this only a tiny bit big. That means very little alterations for me!

And I’ve mentioned this before, but Vertical wires are a much better fit for women like me, dealing with what Beverly Johnson refers to in her manuals as the Omega shape. I had no idea there were bras on the market that used Vertical wires!

I also thought I’d mention a great resource, just in case you’re wanting to clone a bra. For me, it originally came from my first Threads magazines purchase. Sadly, it’s an out of print issue from Feb/March 2002 (#99). Beverly Johnson wrote an article called “Clone a Favorite Bra”. There’s a review of this article  on Pattern Review. I recommend it as well.

But don’t be discouraged that you can’t get that magazine back issue; the same information as the article is in the Bra-Makers Manual; the only big difference is the article had photos with it; the information in the manual has illustrations.

Happy creating!