Doctor T Designs

I had hoped that August would have been a super productive sewing month for me since I was home from my spring travels, but I’ve generally not had a ton of energy to be sewing. I’ve been doing a lot of sewing adjacent things – planning projects, organizing pattern files, thinking about finishing up some WIPs, and watching lots of YouTube videos for inspiration, but not a lot of actual sewing. I have finished up a lot of projects I had started working on a few months ago but never had time to complete, so it sort of looks like I’ve been doing more sewing than I actually have. It feels like the rest of the year is going to be really crazy and busy though, so I’ve generally been ok taking a bit of a relaxed approach to everything this month.

Sewing Progress

This month I finished up a lot of projects that had been either cut out a while ago or had been on the to-do list for a while. The first was finally getting to my cherry fabric and starting on my mini lingerie wardrobe. I’d been going back and forth on what I wanted to use to finish this project with and it led to me digging through a lot of the stash to find every bit of red elastic that I owned.

But ultimately I was really happy with the final selections I’d made to finish this project – I think all of the reds came together really well.

I’ve also been wanting to try sewing some men’s undergarments, because the construction seemed complicated compared to women’s undergarments and I really wanted to wrap my brain around how to construct them. So I decided to try sewing a few samples for my boyfriend to test some different patterns. I looked at some of the Jalie patterns (3242 and 3885) and the Pin-up Girls Men’s Underwear v.2 pattern and made a sample of each using some random stash jersey fabric I had hanging about. The sizing on the Jalie 3242 seemed to better match measurements, and it’s a much simpler pattern than the 3885, so I started there. I decided to also try the PUG pattern (the Michael variant) because the seam options allowed for more shaping. It took me a while to wrap my brain around all the pieces, but I watched a few video tutorials from the Bra Bee Academy (happily there are sew alongs for both of these patterns, which may have also influenced my decisions to use them), and overall it actually ended up being a pretty straightforward process to construct both of these patterns once I understood the front opening overlap layout.

I’ll probably do a full pattern review write-up post once I’ve made the final version, but it seems like the Jalie pattern tends towards being a bit on the smaller side of things, whereas the PUG pattern seems to assume that the wearer is going to be extremely tall. My biggest challenge was figuring out how much to reduce the height of the pattern because undergarments being too long was a definite issue I was trying to avoid. I’m happy to report that the PUG pattern got a thumbs up, so I’m probably going to move forward with making some more of those. I suspect the PUG pattern also has a bit more generous drafting around the sensitive regions – even from looking at the garments laid flat, it’s possible to see that the Jalie puts the extra volume in the front pouch area, whereas the PUG looks a bit more like there is a gusset type shape drafted onto the bottom of the front pattern pieces. The patterns are wildly different shapes, so I can’t really compare them directly, but the shaping around the legs is definitely different. I might try the PUG Lillebror variation as well, just for curiosity sake, but there seems to be less desire for variety in men’s undergarments than for women’s undergarments, so the name of the game is probably just quantity over variety moving forward.

And finally I’ve been working on making matching underwear to go with last month’s bras. It’s a bit ridiculous how long this has taken me, but I needed to get more tan fold over elastic, and I didn’t really like the color of the first batch of elastic, so now I’ve got lots of shades of beige fold over in my stash. I’ve also been ridiculously lazy about changing my serger threads… even though I know I’ll be happier in the long run matching threads my projects and I know I’ll be happier using the serger rather than just sewing them, they have sat for literal weeks in their tiny rolled up burritos waiting to be serged. It’s a bit beyond ridiculous, but, the energy has been really low this month… though I’m not entirely sure why.

Sewing Delays

There haven’t been any major delays due to travel or anything else this month, but I have been feeling really burnt out and generally tired. I think it’s just the past few months of travel catching up with me, but I’m hoping I can snap out of this soon because the next few months look to be just as busy as the past few. At some level I think it’s just my brain knowing this is the only real rest period I’m going to get this year, but I had hoped to get more things done this month.

Finished Projects

The biggest project I finished this month was the first three pieces of my cherry fabric mini-wardrobe set. I’m hoping to add to this, but I’m probably going to have to put it on hold a bit while I work on some other more pressing projects.

And even though they sat for weeks, I was able to get my motivation in gear and finish up my matching undies to go with my bras from last month. It was definitely a down to the wire situation for getting them finished for this post, so no fancy photos, just a cutting table overhead shot:

All of these were made using my TNT self-drafted pattern from the Beverly Johnson Craftsy course; the blue with a french cut leg so I could utilize more of my rainbow fold over elastic, and the beige ones with the forward side seam to help utilize the non-stretch lace in as functional a way as possible.

WIPs & Upcoming Plans

My next few projects are sort of an emergency pivot from my previous list of projects because of an event coming up that I’m very excited to go to! They will be going hand-in-hand: I’m going to start working on Vogue 1616 and the Marei Strapless Bra to go under it! I’ve got my patterns and materials ready to go (or, at least ordered and en-route), so I’m going to pivot my time to completely working on these projects over the next few months. So I think the overall sewing output will slow, but I’m excited to see what I am able to come up with working on these more complex projects.