Doctor T Designs

After my recent “Vanilla Latte” self-drafted test, I was really happy with how my self-drafted band pattern was fitting, but I did want to make some minor fitting tweaks to really nail it down. I felt confident enough though that I thought I would break out some of the laces I have been accumulating since the start of my bra sewing adventures and see if I could also add some interesting design elements to this version of my Willowdale/self-drafted underwear set.

I didn’t feel quite ready to break into any of “the precious” materials yet. I have a few kits I’ve bought from Bra Builders, as well as some fancy mirrored laces I’ve started collecting from Gigi’s, Emerald Erin, Tailor Made Shop, and B, Wear, but I wanted to have one more attempt at making the pattern and really making sure of a few fit things before grabbing some of those more expensive materials. So I essentially re-made the previous set with my fit adjustments, but also with a few style adjustments to incorporate a non-mirrored lace trim that felt particularly festive for fall.

The fit changes I made to this version were to use a 3/4″ band elastic instead of the 1/2″ I’d been using on every previous bra I’ve made. I also narrowed the under bust band by 1/4″ and raised the upper band by 1/2″. I also took a 1/4″ dart out of the upper cup piece and removed 1/2″ of width from the back band piece.

The style changes I made were to utilize a lace upper cup and to include an external lace power bar with integrated lace strap. I took the idea for how to do this from Liz’s 2023 Bra Bee class on lace power bars. I think she even uses a similar lace in that class, though hers is mirrored. I would have liked to incorporate more lace on the bridge and the back band, but it turns out I did not have as much length as I thought I did, and I actually ended up using all of it to make this set.

For the underwear I used my self-drafted brief pattern with the forward side seam. I appliquéd the lace onto the front pattern piece before construction. This lace wasn’t particularly soft, so I left the jersey backing rather than doing a transparency effect. I had to be really creative with lace placement because I had barely enough to make it fit, but it worked!

I will say I am probably as shocked as anyone that I decided to use orange as an accent fold over elastic on the briefs. I’m not much for orange in my wardrobe, but I did order a multi-pack of fold-over elastics and I had some muted oranges that matched the colors in the lace rather well. Looking at everything else I have in my stash at the moment, there’s really nothing else I would use this color for, and I did think it emphasized the autumnal colors, so I went with it. Overall I am very happy with my finished set!

Next up, I plan to move on to testing a few different patterns, including the B, Wear Angie’s Twin, the Sahaara, some of the AFI Atelier designs, and the Aries bra. I’d also like to revisit the Ruby and the Freja patterns and see if I can alter the cups to fit into my new band/wire size because I do really like the styles for those patterns. For all of these except the Sahaara I am considering using my self-drafted band and just fitting the cups, because I am super happy with the fit of the band on this version. Thinning out the band under the cups reduced a lot of the issues I was having with the elastic flipping up, and thus far I’m really liking the 3/4″ elastic width, so I’ll probably order that to use when possible moving forward. I’d also like to try a foam cup covered with a stretch fabric, and I’m realizing that I also really need to make some better sports bras but I want to test some of the different cup styles before I make these projects. At this point I think it’s safe to call the Willowdale/self draft a TNT, so now I’d like to build up my pattern library a bit. I really need to get back to working on some non-sewing projects, but I have really been relying on my sewing projects to destress lately. Although I don’t know how much time I’ve got in the coming weeks to sew, I am very happy that I’ve gotten to the point of having a TNT pattern set that I can now reliably use to make something that fits great!