Sewing Bras - Copying your favorite/best fitting RTW bra!
As I make my way through the lingerie sewing realm, I've decided to try my luck with combining my favorite aspects of 2 different bras info one custom design. The cups on the Comexim (my first Polish bra!) are awesome - they push the girls up and together while still looking "dainty". The extra wide band on the Satami is pretty fabulous as well - providing a smooth silhouette in my back and underarms. This, endeavor, however will require significant time pattern making.
Although I've been sewing for over 20 years (remember when Home Economics was a class in Junior High?), my pattern drafting experience is limited to as-needed basis from various books, textbooks and an occasional blog - often in the middle of the night. I bring this up because I KNOW you absolutely need a pattern to sew bras AND that pattern HAS. TO. BE. ACCURATE.
I essentially copied the seam lines of the existing bra(s) using pattern paper, smoothed out the lines with a ruler and ensured all the seams lined up correctly and sewed up a bra muslin. Try on, more adjustments based on bra muslin, rinse and repeat. My first try sewing up this chimera of a bra was more or less an exact replica of the cups [barring correcting a few mistakes like the cups being too open, not pulling the plush elastic hard enough/evenly enough on the cups, etc] and fit pretty well otherwise. On my second attempt, I decided to move the apex of the cups to more closely align with mine AS WELL AS moving in the straps 2 cm. This opened up a whole new can of worms requiring more bra toiles. Nevertheless, take a gander at my newest creation - mistakes and all!
The end result of Round 2!:
One of the best pieces of advice I read about sewing bras is to create a bra toile, however, I recently came across a bit of related advice that I find equally helpful. Create a bra toile of ONLY the band. In most cases - especially true if you're fitting yourself - the band will fit fine and/or remain the same. Its the cup shape/design/size that differs that will require multiple adjustments. The
fitting band
should be complete - with elastic, hooks and straps. That way, you only need to make a toile of the bra cups! Easier to sew, try on, take apart and repeat as necessary.
Here's a pic from the
:
