Doctor T Designs

Last year I went through a lot of fit trials and tribulations but ended up with a wearable (and very comfortable) Sahaara bra. Although I still think that I prefer a more structured bra for going out and about, I do find that I wear my Sahaara a lot on days when I just need to work from home (which is a lot of days). I’ve already had a busy month, so I wanted a quick project, and this seemed like a good time to fill the need for another comfortable at-home bra.

So I’d had the idea to make another on my radar for a while, though I was still thinking about messing around with the fit of the cups a bit more. However, while I was tidying up my cutting table I was looking at some of the samples I made and I just sort of held up one of the original pattern pieces over the bra I was wearing and it looked like it would be a perfect fit. I guess there is something to be said for all the instructions that tell you to wear a properly fitting bra to figure out sizing to sew a bra? Which of course leads to the “if I had a bra that fit I wouldn’t be sewing one” argument, but I digress. Added to that, I really underestimated how much support the stabilization strips provide to this pattern, which made me doubt a lot of the alterations I’d made in my test versions. Anyway, long story short, I decided to try making another Sahaara using the original pattern pieces for the cups rather than my altered pattern pieces. (I did keep my alterations to the frame/band though.) Since this was a bit of an experiment, I thought I would also test out some new elastics and pattern alterations on my self-drafted briefs pattern as well.

Overall I’m pretty happy with how things turned out – I really love the graphic and bold color combo:

I wanted to use up as much of my leftover kit fabric from my first Sahaara, so the finished garment looks very similar. I tried a different waistband elastic on the bra band and on the underwear and I’m happy to report it is comfortable in both. I wanted to try having the underwear leg look like it was just connected to the waistband (without a side seam) but I’m ok with the sort of graphic angle that resulted – it mirrors the shape of the Sahaara pretty nicely. I probably should have used the black fold over along the inner neckline as well, but I was trying to use up leftover kit materials, so I didn’t.

I was much happier with how I sewed the center front this time around. It wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty good. I think the rest of the construction is pretty good too:

Compared to when I altered the cups, there are some things I like better using the original cups, and some things I like better from my altered version. From the original pattern, the cups are a bit less projected (aka, pointy), so the bust shape is a bit smoother. However, the original cups tend to give me a bit more east-west effect, which tends to pull the center front away from the body, resulting in much less support than my altered cups. Granted, it’s a wireless bra, so the front doesn’t exactly tack even in my altered version, but it definitely sits much closer to the body. I am thinking that perhaps if I use the cup seam curve from the original and the rest of the pattern from my already altered version I’ll really be on to something. I’ve got one more kit ready for this pattern, so maybe an ultimate and updated version 3 will be coming soon.

Here is a side-by-side to compare the cup shapes:

Overall I’m happy with this project, because I have some more wearable garments, and I tested out some new materials as well as the cup patterns when I had a doubt over my own alterations. I’m sure I will get a lot of use out of this set, but I’m also happy to move forward with my altered version of the cups on this pattern for any upcoming projects because I can definitively say it fits me better.