Doctor T Designs

November has been a busy month! Most of my sewing progress has been pattern drafting and alteration work, so there hasn’t been a ton of finished projects to show off on the blog, but I feel like I’ve been making a lot of progress in a “behind the scenes” sort of way.

Sewing Progress

Because I’m crazy, I’m working on batch fitting several bra patterns. It started when I was working on a comparison of the AFI Exquisite Bra and the B, Wear Angie’s Twin. After getting such a good initial fit from my first Angie’s Twin pattern, I went a bit splurgy and bought a bunch of other B, Wear patterns to try. I usually work on patterns one or at most two at a time, but since I now have a self-drafted bra band that is really working for me, I figured I would rather batch the tracing, testing, and adjusting for the cup patterns to fit my TNT underwire draft, as well as working on the Sahaara bra pattern separately since it is a totally different style of center front and band on that pattern. I’ve recently been using Notion to make something like a digital sewing journal, and I’m really loving it! It’s been super helpful to take notes, track progress, and add extras like links to pattern reviews or embed video tutorials from YouTube. I might do a separate post on the Notion system I’ve set up for myself, but for now I’m just reviewing the sewing projects I’ve made progress on this month. I’ll give a summary of each pattern I’m working on below.

B, Wear Angie’s Twin

This might be the best bra pattern I’ve found thus far in terms of fitting me right away with minimal adjustments. Granted, this is after learning a lot about omega pattern adjustments and making a custom band fit, but I think even with that “shortcut” this pattern is just made for my shape more than some of the other patterns I’ve tried. My first mock-up fit really well, but I’ve added 3/8″ horizontally across multiple seams for the second version and raised the height by about 3/4″. I’m really happy with how the second mock up looks! I think I’m ready to make something with this pattern and see how it does when given the full treatment of good elastics and proper fabrics, so hopefully that will happen sometime next month.

B, Wear Jessica’s Twin

Although this pattern is very similar to the Angie’s Twin, it has only one vertical seam with two cup pieces, which made the need for alterations much more apparent. As with nearly all my alterations, I needed more projection and a taller upper cup, so I did a 3/4″ FBA and added about 1/2″ to the horizontal curvature. I was a bit shocked, but after the adjustment the fit was surprisingly good. This might be a new favorite pattern for me! Especially because the single seam line gives a lot of options to use this pattern with some fancy laces where I don’t want to interrupt too much of the design. I’m hoping to use this pattern sometime soon as well.

B, Wear Margareta

The Margareta is very similar in style to the Willowdale, but I wanted to test it out to make another pattern comparison between the brands. Honestly there are a lot of bra patterns that are similar in style lines to the Willowdale and the Margareta, so once you find a pattern brand that works really well for you, it’s very possible there might be a similar pattern (such as the PUG Shelly or the AFI Elegance bras). For this pattern, I had the same fit issue with the Margareta as with the Jessica’s Twin, though I had more seams to work with to add some additional fullness to the inner and center cup. This pattern comes with more sizes in one packet than the Jessica’s Twin, so I started with a larger size blend, but I still needed to add a bit of volume and more vertical height. I was also happy with the second test sample on this pattern, so I think it is also ready for a real version soon.

B, Wear Olivia Bra-lette

This is an interesting pattern because it is called a “Bra-lette” because of the style lines, but it is designed for underwires. The pattern is similar to the Jessica’s Twin in that it’s a 2-piece vertical seamed cup, but it also has an overlay pattern meant for lace, which is an interesting design detail. The cup shape is a bit different than the Jessica’s Twin, but pretty similar in terms of the alterations I needed to make. The drafting on the overlay pattern is very interesting, so I’m happy I got this pattern just so I could see how it was drafted. I need to do a bit more modification to this pattern to increase the cup hight a bit more and to redistribute the shape of the apex curve a bit, but this pattern should be pretty close to usable soon.

Gravity By Grandy Aries Bra

This is my first Gravity By Grandy pattern, and I will say it doesn’t come in quite as many sizes as some of the other patterns on the market. I knew that even though the pattern was telling me to start with a 38F (the largest cup size in that band size), the cups would likely be too small, and I was right. The sample was so tight in some places in the cup the only way I can think of to describe my boob shape in that first sample would be “is potato”. This cup uses several diagonal seams, so the alterations I did on this pattern were really different from the others, where I basically did a slash and spread, but on the diagonal opposite to the seams. I’m not sure if this was the “right” way to do it, but I basically just tried to add more fabric/volume where there was clearly an issue with flat spots in the first sample, and go from there. The second sample still has some issues with flat spots but is much better, so I think I’m on the right track, I just wasn’t aggressive enough with my adjustment. I did a third sample with another 3/4″ added and it seems like it might be ok. I think I will need to do a “real” sample of this, which might lead to further adjustments, but I think it’s close enough to give it a try. I do really want to get this pattern worked out though; I’ve got a few laces I would love to make in this pattern for the holidays.

Rubie’s Sahaara Bra

I’m on the fourth round of fitting with this pattern but I think I’ve finally got it worked out. I think the band size/fit is actually pretty good based on my measurements, but my first attempt at an FBA went a bit wonky and I felt like I was taking out everything I had added, but it was still fitting weird, even though it was clear I needed more volume from my first test sample. So I decided for my next round I would go back to the original pattern and try a different FBA method of slash and spread in a different location, but also not be quite so overzealous in my attempt to increase the cup volume. I ended up taking 1/8″ off the center front and also taking some darts along the neckline and underarm edges (omega shape be omega-ing for sure when there’s no underwire). My final pattern is compared against the original below – you can see where the arm and neckline edges needed to be shorter, but the central curve slightly bigger. I’m pretty happy with where this is fitting now so I think this pattern might be the focus of my next few projects.

Overall I’m very happy with where things are in all of these fitting tests. It probably seems a bit crazy to work on so many patterns at once, but I think it has been good (or at least educational) to both compare different patterns and brands, but also to be able to sort of focus on making the same alterations to increase cup volume on a lot of different shapes of cups. Hopefully this will refine my approach to pattern adjustments in the future.

Sewing Delays

This month has been a bit crazy. I’ve been picking up some extra work hours, helping with some projects for friends and family on the weekends, and I was supposed to have gone on a quick trip this month. The trip didn’t work out at all (my flight got cancelled and the replacement flights didn’t get me where I needed to go in time, so the whole trip got scrapped very last minute), but even without that November has been quite busy. I’ve still been finding time to work on my sewing projects in the late evenings, so I’ve been able to make just a bit of progress each day, which has been nice. It’s definitely been my go-to as a form of stress relief lately; something about having to math my way through pattern alterations is calming to my brain somehow. I’ve been staying up way too late, but I think even with that it’s overall been good for me to work on my sewing projects, especially with the mindset of developing some TNT patterns I can use for quick projects as I get busy over the next several months.

Finished Projects

My only finished project this month was my fall florals bra set:

Although I haven’t finished a lot of projects, I have been wearing the one project I did finish a lot! I can definitely say this is my most comfortable and best fitting set of undergarments so far. I have been really enjoying these and I’m looking forward to making more sets soon!

WIPs & Upcoming Plans

Currently I am finishing up my pattern alterations for all of these new patterns. I’ve been wearing my BJ’s bralette more than I would have expected, so I think my immediate projects are going to be some sleep bralettes, one of which I want to make with the Sahaara pattern. I think this will be a good way to give it one final fit test before I cut into my Bra Builders Sahaara kit and make a more supportive bra. I’ve got several fancy kits I’ve purchased that I really want to sew up soon, and a few Black Friday purchases on their way that I might also want to sew up while they are seasonal. Not that I won’t wear “seasonal” things year-round, but, you know, it’s sort of fun to plan a few sewing projects that feel festive. My sewing wish list keeps growing, which is sort of nice because it means I’m gathering lots of inspiration, but I’m definitely glad I am near the end of this testing phase so hopefully I can move on to the more fun creative phase during December. I also splurged a bit and got myself the Bra Builders BRAdvent Box, so I’m really excited to open that next month! I want to enjoy the spirit of an advent box where I get to open a new package each day; I think it’ll make boring pre-work mornings more fun for sure. I’ll try to document what I get in case anyone is curious about the boxes, though each is custom built based on the parameters you put into the order for the box, so what I get is probably not reflective of what everyone else might get. But it’ll be fun to share and hopefully gives a good idea of what types of things come in the boxes. I’m sure December will be just as crazy as November, but I’m hoping that all the work I’ve done pattern testing this month means I’ll have a lot of options for patterns to start off with for sewing lots of fun things next month!