This month the Bra Sewing Community is celebrating BRAugust! It’s primarily an Instagram Challenge to post about Bra Sewing every day, but I’ve largely gone away from posting on Instagram so I decided to do a weekly summary here on the blog, instead of the daily posting just to keep a bit more manageable of a schedule.
The prompts are based on the schedule put out by the Bra Sewing Bee (originally posted in The Hive). Here’s what we’ve got going on this month:
So without further ado, let’s jump into the prompts!
August 1 – Introduction: Share why you sew lingerie
Longtime readers might know that in real life I go by Patricia, Tricia, Trish, Castle, T, or ☕️ but on the blog and in the sewing sphere I mostly go by Doctor T or Doctor T Designs. I started sewing lingerie because my sister wanted to learn how to sew a bra, and after following the Craftsy bra sewing class, I got sucked down the rabbit hole. It started by understanding just how poorly my undergarments were actually fitting, and wanting to do something to fix that. I find I really enjoy the engineering aspect of fitting bras, but I also enjoy the design aspect as well. I also really like that these are relatively quick projects to sew, and that I can get a lot of wear out of them. I can also try a range of styles and colors without really worrying about it’s impact on my visible wardrobe or style, which allows me to be more experimental and have a lot of fun.
August 2 – Most Worn
My “most worn” is ever changing as I get better with my fitting skills and as I try more styles to really hone in on what I like to wear. Right now my most worn wired bras are my foam Willowdale, my black Josey, and my Latte Willowdale:
I like the way the foam Willowdale looks under t-shirts, the Black Josey was a great improvement on the band fit, and I wear the Latte Willowdale under a lot of my light colored shirts. However, now that I have some new Latte Joseys I think these will soon move up in the “most worn” category:
And I actually wear my my wireless bras quite a bit during most work from home days – I actually wear the Sahaara a ton, and I’ve started wearing the Loftus quite a bit as well, and I find myself reaching for the Mysa when I want something really comfortable:
Although the Loftus was irritating to my skin when I first wore it, I find it’s much better now that it has been through the wash a few times. I want to try the pattern with some different materials and see if I can get something that’s a bit less irritating where the elastic line outlines the neck edge.
August 3 – Sewing Snacks
I don’t tend to eat a lot while I’m sewing and I definitely don’t bring food into my sewing area. However, when I need to get a quick snack I often eat a bit of fruit or a small chunk of cheese and drink water to stay hydrated. Sewing is sweaty work – especially days where you need to cut out fabric!
And that’s it for this introductory week of BRAugust! I’ll be back with more next week!
Doctor T Designs 
Some of those are like the security questions my bank asks… “People snack in the sewing space?!”
About the neck finish for the Loftus: I learned a new one a few days ago, where you fold the seam allowance and zig-zag it to the front, and then cover it with a strip of stretch lace. You could use an elastic or some tape instead, too. That way nothing is touching your skin at the neckline except for the bra cup fabric.
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I’m going to need to try this! I realized it was actually where the center front panel was rubbing that was most irritating so I do think having some sort of tape or covering over that allowance would help a lot.
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I think I’ve seen someone online finish those kinds of seams with underwire casings, even though there wasn’t any underwire to encase… Maybe that, plus sewing the seams wrong sides together so they’re on the outside? I’ve done an inside-out bra (with underwires) and found it very comfy.
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I think the casing might be a bit thick for this seam and it’s really long, but I was thinking to try using fold over elastic just sewn flat as like a tape because it’s a lot flatter and a lot cheaper. I’ve seen people use channeling to stabilize seams without wires, but I think it might actually be too stiff for this seam because it goes right over the inner part of the full bust and I worry it’ll look lumpy under a shirt. The inside out idea is interesting… I’ll have to ponder that and how the construction order might work with inside out seams for this particular pattern.
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