Doctor T Designs

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 25 – Next Project Plans

Originally, now that I have a really good band fit, my plan was to work on making sure that all of the cups and patterns I had previously fit to my other band will work for me with this new fitting band. I wanted to make a more permanent re-useable fitting band so I can play with test cups, and fix my cup patterns for the Willowdale, B,Wear patterns, and Lusamine. I’ve also got a bunch of LilyPADesgins patterns already printed out and ready to fit, so those were also supposed to be part of this next round of fit testing. However, I also recently got a very exciting invite to a very fun event, so I’m probably going to pivot completely away from bra sewing and go completely into an entirely fanciful sewing project, at least for a little while. So if you’ve been waiting for me to pivot back from all the bra sewing content – the time is now! But also, if you are here for all the bra sewing content – don’t worry, I need to start working on a strapless bra too!

August 26 – Elastics and Trim

I’ve got quite a collection of elastics and trim – a lot with kits and a lot I’ve bought separately. I went a bit ham with B,Wear’s St. Lucia sale last year and got a lot of elastic, but I recently realized how I had a bunch of picot elastic but not a lot of strap elastics! I’m trying to balance out my stash so that I can have things on hand when inspiration strikes, and I definitely prefer to order several things at once to reduce the amount of times I’m having things shipped. I definitely use fold over elastic and picot elastic much faster than I use my fancy decorative elastics, but they are pretty so I have too many of them in my stash. As for trim, I already had a large collection of things from when I was sewing skating costumes, and it has only expanded now that I sew lingerie. My lace collection exploded this year and I really want to spend a lot of time sewing it back down to a manageable size next year.

August 27 – Share your sewing space

I’m very lucky to have a sewing space in a section of the kitchen that is probably supposed to be a family room and dining area. I’ve totally taken over and made it my little corner of creativity, but we had a lot of unexpected house work done over the past 18 months, so it’s been in a constant state of chaos this last year. I really want to get everything back to organized and functional though so I can focus on making things and not just finding things.

I didn’t bother to clean it up for photos – this is the current state of insanity! My cutting table is piled with boxes while I look for materials for my next project, though most of these will get cleared off soon so I can start on preparing the patterns for my next project. Diagonal from that is the corner of absolute chaos; right now it’s piled with a bunch of stuff that got shoved there after we had the housework done, and my immediate sewing tools are in front. I’m hoping to reclaim the shelves for my pattern boxes, use the bookshelves for my sewing books and maybe some supplies, and move my interfacing drawers back to their previous spot. I’ve repositioned my thread cart though and I like this much better – it used to hide in the corner but now I have much better access to the threads, and I can pull it out of the way to get to my bookshelf when needed. And of course my actual corner where my sewing machines live is my favorite. I’ve got the artwork of a friend on the wall, and easy access to all of my machines from the same chair position. Ideally, I would love to have a different dedicated table for the embroidery machine (and maybe the Cricut machine as well?) and have the serger and cover stitch next to each other on the long table, but for now this setup is working for me and I can access all of the machines when I need them. I also really love my corner Ott Light; I’ve got two of them – one for my sewing area and one for my cutting table. They were a bit of a splurge but I appreciate having them because I end up doing a lot of sewing at night and they are super bright. I did a big sewing space reset during the pandemic, but I think it’s time to go through and and organize things again now that I’ve had to move everything and it’s all more chaotic than normal.

August 28 – Swim

I can’t remember the last time I went swimming… and I’ve never actually made a swimsuit, though I’ve made my fair share of skating costumes, so I can’t pretend like the construction skills would be totally new to me. Definitely something to add to the list!

August 29 – What is something you want to learn?

I really want to make a good sports bra because I’m still using RTW ones and they are a tad small. I’d also like to try making absorptive undergarments and learn how to work with some of those unique materials. And making a corset has been on my list of things to sew since I started sewing over 14 years ago! I think I still have a lot to learn and a lot I can try in the realm of lingerie sewing, in addition to everything I want to try and still learn with other sewing projects. I’d love to get back to learning more about drafting garments since I’ve had so much success with that not just with making bra bands, but also with making some of my favorite pants, and digitizing my own embroidery designs for undergarments is also on my list of things to try.

August 30 – Show us your sewing room buddies

I don’t have any pets but I’m an avid Pokémon Go player, and I’ve got a collection of Pokémon plushies that hang out with me while I’m planning projects.

August 31 – Goals

Right now I have a lot of goals focused on sewing non-undergarments, and working on a wardrobe sewing plan (after my immediate sewing projects wrap up). However, part of that includes replacing all of my RTW bras, including a strapless bra (which is in progress!) and making more workout gear. I especially want to work on a functional sports bra that I can make a bunch of so I can workout without having to wash them multiple times a week. I’ve heard good things about the Make Bra brand, so right now my lingerie sewing goals is to test the Ulla Sport pattern and see if it might work for me for workout gear. I also want to work through my bra sewing stash a bit and try new patterns and use some of my kits during the rest of the year. Although I know new patterns come out often, I would love to have a set of TNT bra patterns so that way next year I can really focus on making fun designs and enjoying using the materials in my stash rather than spending as much time on the fitting process. Ultimately the goal is to have an entirely self-sewn underwear drawer. I’m well on my way, but I do have a bit of work to go!

It’s been a fun month of BRAugust! Thanks for hanging out with me and following along and I dove into my corner of the world of bra sewing!