Doctor T Designs

In my previous post, I went down the rabbit hole of comparing three underwire bra patterns: the Pin-up Girls Ruby, the Bravo Bra #2, and the Cashmerette Willowdale. I’ve already made the Ruby several times (I’ve compiled a page with all my bra sewing adventures for handy reference) so I was primarily interested in getting workable patterns for the Bravo Bra #2 and the Willowdale. When I left off, I had done initial fit bands for each, I was waiting for my order of Bliss underwires, and I had quite a few alterations to make to the pattern. I’ve now gotten through a second round of fitting and I’m pleased to report that things are going well.

Firstly, I made quite a few fit changes to the patterns.

Bravo Bra #2 initial fit changes:

• Dart out about 1” from central seam & side seam
• Add about 3/4” height to center front bridge
• Add extra fabric coverage at top of cup on center front
• Remove about 1/4” dart from top of side seam
• Re-split the lower cup and add 1/8″ curvature to the seam (I had originally combined these pieces because all of the Pattern Review posts said that the seam did nothing for shaping and that they all ended up removing it. After listening to the Bra Bee, I think the seam was there not for shaping but for structural support, though it is also an easy place to add shaping if you need more roundness in the lower cup.)

Willowdale initial fit changes:

• Dart side seam 1/4”
• Dart out front cup 3/4”
• Add height to front bridge 5/8”
• Add height under arm 7/8” along wire line
• Dart power bar seam 1/2”

In both cases the changes to the bands were fairly minimal, however, the cup changes were pretty drastic, especially in the Bravo Bra #2. The power bar piece is very differently shaped than the original, which was much too long on me. Interestingly, in both patterns I needed to add to the top of the cup but take away volume from the sides/width of the cups. I think it makes sense that I had to take away volume in a lot of places; since I didn’t have a “best fitting” non-foam bra, I went with a no-bra measuring technique, which, due to the lack of tissue wrangling from a real bra, probably resulted in too large of measurements. Re-measuring myself using my test fitting bras definitely gave me different measurements than what I started with, and is probably what I would use to get a better starting point in the future. However, the no-bra measurement was definitely better than my (at the time) “best fitting bra” measurement would have been, so I don’t regret my choices up to this point.

Once I had my first round of fit adjustments done, it was time to try the cups for round 2 of fitting. Happily, taking out the cups (which had been based in) and replacing them with new cups was pretty straightforward. Less happily, I also needed to adjust the side seam with darts and to adjust the height so I ended up un-picking and re-sewing elastic on the Willowdale to even be able to sew in the cups. Rather than make an entirely new fitting band I just attached a bit of scrap sheer cup lining to the top of the fitting band and sort of re-cobbled it together. Pretty? No. Effective? Yeah, more or less.

Here’s a look at the updated Bravo Bra #2:

And here’s a comparison between the first round (left) and second round (right):

Even though it’s a bit difficult to see in the sheer cup fabric, I think the side by side makes it pretty clear how wide the original cups were, and how much they coned away from the body. The second version is a much closer fit and definitely a lot more rounded, though still more conical than the Willowdale.

After the second round of fitting my only adjustments were:

• Take out another 1/4″ from the power bar/cup seam
• Shift horizontal seam curvature from from inner front to center part of the cup seam
• Dart power bar 1/4”
• Add 1” height under arm
• Move side seam towards the back by 1 1/4”

After these changes, here was my pattern comparison to the original 40I:

My most recent set of changes were primarily to the band configuration now that the cup was pretty close to correct. Interestingly, I keep taking away volume from the lower cup and moving it back to the upper cup. It’s still a lot smaller than how I started (probably a 40H would have been a closer starting point) but I think the general pattern integrity is maintained.

Moving on to the Willowdale, here’s a look at the updated second round fit test:

With the comparison between the Willowdale first round (left) and second round (right):

A lot of the same issues are visible from the first version here as well – too much widthwise volume on the lower cup and not enough coverage on the upper cup. The second version has fixed this quite nicely.

After the second fit of the Willowdale I had to make the following changes:

• Raise bottom band side seam 1/4”
• Raise under arm by 1” and add elastic allowance under arm
• Remove 1/4″ from the top of the power bar to “dart” the cup seam
• Dart side cup seam by 1/4″
• Dart upper cup 1/4” at center front
• Increase center front 5/8” for the upper cup and the bridge

Here is a look at the updated pattern pieces in comparison to both the 36F and the 36J cup pieces:

The pieces that have had the most change are the power bar and the upper cup. Surprisingly, the inner cup piece ended up very close to the 36F original draft, but the middle lower cup piece is a lot closer to the 36J. I think this kind of makes sense because I’ve been working off the theory that I have a lot more volume from forward projection and not a lot of volume from horizontal width.

I felt pretty comfortable with the minor tweaks I still needed on the Bravo Bra, but for the Willowdale I went through a third round of fitting the cups. After the third round I was really happy with the fit:

It’s still a bit hard to see, but the height of the band is much taller; it gives a lot more coverage at the center front. After this fitting I just needed to take out a tiny amount from the center front bridge area; otherwise I finally feel like this fit on both of these is ready to go!

Of interesting note: after fitting round 2, for each pattern I ended up increasing the height of the band. One thing I actually found very comfortable about the Ruby was how much band coverage it gave (though at first I thought it was weird because I was used to RTW partial band bras), and I think making this change to both patterns actually mimics that aspect of the Ruby much more. It’s a less delicate look, but I do sort of appreciate the idea that if you start with the most coverage you need, then you can artfully decide what to take away later when you are making things for aesthetics in addition to function.

Making these two test fits in tandem has really allowed me to compare the styles as well as the fit of these two patterns. For the purpose of this discussion I am going to use the five metrics of fit as coverage, support, structure, shape, and style, as was discussed in the “What is Fit?” class at the 2023 International Bra Sewing Bee. After fitting round 2, the Bravo Bra is winning in terms of coverage, support, and structure, whereas the Willowdale is coming out ahead for me in terms of shape and style. The Willowdale’s narrower opening for the cups in the band and the rounder appearance of the cups is giving me a shape I really like, even in a flimsy tester bra. I prefer the Willowdale’s overall look so much that I was contemplating abandoning the Bravo Bra #2 at this point, but I decided that since I’ve gotten this far and the technical parts of the fit are better in that pattern I do want to make a finalized Bravo Bra #2. The test fit bands are all well and good, but the true test of a bra is (apparently) being able to wear it for a day and not want to burn it by the end, and I feel like both of these patterns deserve to go through that test since I’ve made it this far with them. I’m hopefully that my most recent pattern changes will get me closer to hitting the coverage, support, and structure metrics for both, even though I think the Willowdale will continue to win out on the shape and style for me.

Finally, I have some thoughts on wires. I’ve been using the Bra Maker’s Supply/Gigi’s Bra Supply Long 46 wires, but I also have the Bra Builders 46 Flexible wires in my stash. I recently ordered the fit kit for the Emerald Erin Bliss wires, which arrived! Based on my breast root trace I ordered the 40-42-44 sizes, so I was able to test both fit bands with the different Bliss sizes, the WL46 wires, and the flexible 46 wires. I have to say, the Bliss wires were the best fit for me, hands down. Even though the flexible wires are flexible, they still tend to be a bit wider than the Bliss, and they still seem to force the cup to take that wider shape, which just isn’t as comfortable for me. I did re-listen to some of the Bra Bee classes and it was indicated that the flexible wires tent to mold to the body after 3-5 days of wear, so it sort of makes sense that they aren’t giving me the best fit in a test bra, but the counterpoint to this was another instructor saying they could never really fit the flexible wires and always ended up using rigid wires for support. I’m still not entirely convinced that time will help their shape compared to a more vertical rigid wire, but maybe I should give it a try, just to see.

With this recent testing I am coming to understand the importance of the wire shape on the overall fit. Spending quite a bit of time swapping wires and looking at the results made me realize that even a cup with the correct volume will stretch out to smush the boob if the wire is pulling it too wide. Now that I’m falling down the wire rabbit hole I am going to order some of the vertical and extra long wires from Gigi’s and the vertical wires from Porcelynne to compare to my existing wire options. I’m also eagerly waiting for my next Emerald Erin order so I can test out the Omega wire and have some extra Bliss wires on hand for when I finalize the fit of these patterns and go on a bra sewing rampage. Until them I’m going to keep working on these bra patterns and will probably play with inserting all the wires when they get here to test things out. More thoughts on wires to come, I’m sure.

So, now that I have two relatively well fitting test bra patterns, what’s next? Well, I think it’s time to make the two bras! Since I want to have some really basic non-foam versions of these to start with (so I can assess the fit and see if I need to make further alterations to the pattern) I expect I will be making some rather boring designs. I’m really hopeful that I will like the way these turn out though, so I can go back to having fun with beautiful designs and materials for some future versions!

In the meantime, while I’m waiting for wires to arrive I also want to start working on test fitting the Rubie’s Bras Sahaara pattern. The Sahaara is a wireless bra, so I didn’t want to include it with this round of fitting because I think it’s fundamentally different than a wired bra, plus I want to cannibalize some of the bits from the Bravo Bra #2 tester to use on the Sahaara tester. I’m sure I will have more updates on how all of this is going later, plus more updates for the Bravo Bra #2 and the Cashmerette Willowdale. But for now I’m very happy because I feel like I’m on a good track with the patterns I am working on, and that I’ve got a decent enough fit that I feel almost ready to get started on making something functional.