Category: Project Updates

Semi-regular updates about ongoing sewing projects.

Project Updates

Bra-A-Month Challenge in Review

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A reflection on my 2023 monthly bra-making challenge

Greetings, dear readers! Today’s newsletter finally delivers on my long-promised review of my 2023 bra-a-month challenge. I’ll dive in to what I made, what I learned, as well as my plans for future bra-making — but first, an overview for those of you that didn’t follow along with the challenge and, maybe, don’t know exactly what I’m talking about.

Inspired by Emerald Erin’s Bra-A-Week and Evie La Lùve’s Let the Dice Design challenges, I set out in 2023 to do a bra-making challenge of my own in order to practice and fine-tune my bra-making skills. The thought of adding 52 new pieces to my lingerie drawer seemed excessive, not to mention the time involved in making a new bra each week, thus I opted for a monthly bra challenge instead.

What I Made

During the course of the challenge, I completed a total of eight underwire bras (three AFI Exquisites and five LilyPaDesigns Lusamines), one non-wired bra (the Cloth Habit Watson), one sports bra (the Evie La Lùve Mighty), one swimsuit (the Edgewater Avenue Newport), and one corset (the Aranea Black Dahlia).

For the first few of months, I determined each month’s make using a set of design dice that I made, which were inspired by the ones Hannah uses for her Let the Dice Design challenge. These were useful for getting the challenge started, and helped me to be a little creative when deciding on each month’s make.

By April, however, when I had finished my first Exquisite and Lusamine bras (neither of which was a great fit on the first go), I decided I might get better results if I focused on perfecting the fit of a single bra pattern at a time. So I made four more Lusamine bras (diverting only in June to make a swimsuit for my July trip to Las Vegas), and by the last two I felt like I was finally getting a decent fit. I then spent October and November perfecting the fit of the Exquisite, which I think I’m even happier with.

I was able to finish each of these projects within the allotted month except for my December project, which was the Dahlia Victorian Riding Corset. This was a pattern that used to be provided free by Aranea Black, but is no longer available to download. I’d been wanting to make it for years and thought it would make a fitting finale to this year-long project. But, December being busy as it always is, meant I didn’t actually get around to finishing it until well in to 2024.

What I Learned

One of the most important lessons that I learned is that, honestly, a bra challenge isn’t really a great way to learn to make bras, especially if you’re still working on tweaking the fit. In the first half of the year, I added a lot of finished bras to my collection that simply didn’t fit, when I would have been better off making toiles or fitting bands first.

I did, however, get a lot of practice using various finishing techniques which means my bras are looking very well-made inside and out, regardless of how well they fit. So that’s a plus.

What’s Next?

While I did manage to get the fit pretty good on a couple of bra patterns last year, I’m still not totally, completely happy with the way the bras fit me. Even though my underwear drawer is filling up with more me-mades, I often still find myself reaching for my trusty Comexim bras. I’d also like a more reliable way to adjust a bra pattern to fit me without it taking me multiple versions, or even a method to start to make my own bra designs from scratch.

A few years ago, I drafted a bra using the Porcelynne method as described in her book, Bare Essentials. It didn’t turn out great at all, I think in part due to the fact that I wasn’t nearly experienced enough in pattern drafting or bra making at the time. Now, coming off of the heels of my recent experience in Victoria Werner’s Confident Patternmaking course, I’ve decided to try my hand again at drafting a bra pattern to fit my body. This time, I’ll be using Porcelynne’s method, as well as the method laid out in Patternmaking for Underwear Design by Kristina Shin, and the Full Course for Bra Pattern Drafting from Merckwaerdigh.

I’ll make each bra using the same materials, starting with a fitting band, and then full toiles, adjusting as necessary until I decide which method works best and adjust from there. I would love to have a truly well-fitting bra pattern from which to fill out my lingerie drawer.

That’s it for today, but I’ll be sure to update you all here as I progress in this new project. And I’d love to know if any of you are bra-makers, too! Please leave me some comments — it’s always nice to know I’m not the only one struggling through the process of trying to make a well-fitting bra.

The Halloween Costume

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Now that Halloween is over, it seems an opportune time to share a little more about this year’s costume-making process. I think it’s safe to say that this is one of my more involved costume projects — I self-drafted my outfit and built two props to go along with it. I’ll start with the outfit, as I already discussed the first few steps in my previous newsletter.

The dress was relatively simple to make, though the pattern looks complicated. As I mentioned last time, I drafted a fairly simple strapless princess seam dress, removed about 1/4” from all the seams to account for the stretch of the fabric, then put together a quick toile. I drew my design onto the toile, then cut it apart along the new style lines, which I then traced back onto the pattern pieces. I cut these apart and reassembled them as needed. And here’s what I ended up with:

I made sure to add plenty of notches and labels so that I’d be able to easily put them all back together. I also made a simple lining pattern out of the original princess seam pattern, which I cut out of a lightweight knit fabric. And, to top it off, I made a built-in shelf bra from from power mesh and bra foam using the same pattern pieces.

I sewed rigilene boning directly into the seams of the lining to give some added support. While I added a halter strap to the dress, it isn’t exactly doing anything to hold the dress up; it’s essentially a completely strapless garment with a decorative halter neck. The support is coming entirely from the boning and the built-in bra, combined with the stretch of the fabric.

While the fit isn’t bad and it’s not unpleasant to wear, I do think I can make a few improvements to the overall pattern. First of all, with the addition of lining and built-in bra, it became rather tight, so I may benefit from adding just a smidge more room in the upper section of the pattern. Because I factored in enough stretch, I didn’t add any kind of zipper or fasteners, but I think adding one might actually make it a little easier to get into and out of. The boning works alright, but it gets a little odd in my bust area, as the boning ended up on the lining, which was outside of the built-in foam bra, and therefore not attached to it. I’d definitely love to learn more about improving internal, structural elements in my garments.

The props were a lot of fun to create as well. A friend loaned us a 3D printer a few years ago, and I used it to make the ray gun. I found a pattern for free online, printed it out without too much trouble, then glued the pieces together and painted it. The helmet is an acrylic globe meant for outdoor lighting. We cut the opening a little larger to fit over my head, then covered the sharp edges with electric tape and glued a couple of foam wreaths to the base.

I completed the look with a pink wig and some Twiggy-inspired makeup. It was a fun costume, and I can’t wait to challenge myself again next year!

Hope you all had a fun Halloween. Thanks for reading!

Halloween Costumes A stock image of black fabric bats on an orange background.

Let the Halloween Sewing Commence

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I usually begin Halloween costume preparations in mid- to late-August, so getting started after the first week of October feels woefully late to me, but I think I’ll still have plenty of time to put together a pretty fun costume for this year’s festivities.

My concept this year is a space traveller inspired by 1960s retrofuturism art. I drew a relatively simple design, then drafted a strapless, princess dress from my bodice block using the method laid out in Patternmaking for Fashion Design by Helen Joseph Armstrong. I whipped up a quick toile, then drew the design onto it, which I’ll next use to draft the final pattern pieces.

The next step, of course, was to purchase fabric. My good friend Diana was kind enough to take me on a tour of Los Angeles’ famous fashion district, a place I’d always been curious about but intimidated to visit by myself. I ended up buying way more fabric than I’ll need for this project, but, in retrospect, much less than I could have bought considering how tempting a lot of the selections were! Since I’m sort of figuring out this costume as I go, I figured it would be better to have too much fabric than not enough, and I’m sure I’ll find a use for the leftovers.

I’ll update you all again in a few weeks when my costume is further along. Until then, thanks for reading!

PS: Have you planned your Halloween costume yet? What are you planning to go as? Will you be sewing it yourself? Let me know in the comments!

Project Updates A stock image showing various sewing tools.

A Quick Sewing Update

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I’d been hoping to have a finished project to write about today, but the past few weeks have seen my sewing slow down a bit due to various life factors. In the interest of not letting this newsletter go completely dormant, I thought I’d write a little about the status of current projects, and future plans as I transition my sewing from summer into fall.

What Am I Working On Now?

I’m getting towards the end of two projects at the moment. The first is my monthly bra project, which, this month, is an experiment in hacking a well-fitting bra pattern into a long-line bra with a v-wire. I’ve wanted to try this for a while, but had been wanting to wait until I had managed to get a bra pattern to fit well enough as-is before hacking it. I’m very close to finishing it, but unfortunately had to pause to order a few materials I’d run out of. Those are due to arrive today, and I can hopefully finish the bra over the next few days in order to finish before October.

The second project is a pair of Ginger Flares in a black & white stripe denim deadstock that I purchased earlier this year from Stonemountain & Daughter. I had seen a pair of striped flares on Pinterest last fall, which inspired me to try my hand at doing something similar. I particularly wanted to play with reverse pattern matching — alternating stripes on the seams to get a fun effect. The thick black & white stripes and pattern matching are reminding me of the dress Christina Ricci wears at the end of Sleepy Hollow, and I’m not mad about it at all. All these need are a waistband, hem, and hardware, and they’ll be ready to wear, too, just in time for my favorite month of the year.

What’s Next?

Next month, I’ll be diving headfirst into drafting & sewing my Halloween costume, as well as making a few items for my future niece who is due in mid-November. I’ve also had a shoe-making project in the back of my mind for over a year now that I’m hoping to finally get started on, though that project may end up getting pushed into November. Plus, it will be month ten of my bra-a-month project, so I really should start brainstorming what that project will be. Probably something simpler than this month’s, to give myself time to work on everything else!

I’m planning to write a lot about my Halloween costume in the coming weeks as I draft and create it, so stay tuned.

What are your plans for fall sewing? Please do leave a comment and let me know!