Doctor T Designs

After making my LilyPAD Marei strapless bra, I realized I’d been using much too large of a size in my other LilyPAD patterns. I wear my current Mysa Bralettes a lot, so I thought it would be good for me to try this pattern again and see if sizing down resulted in a better or more comfortable fit.

My previous versions of the Mysa I used a size 6.5″ BCD from the largest size packet, but this time I started with a 5.7″ BCD from the middle size packet. I need a 36 Band, but the smallest size band for the 5.7 BCD was a size 48, so I compared the total band length between the new 5.7 BCD pattern and my previously adjusted 6.5 BCD pattern and took out a lot from the back band; over an inch at least. I also thought I was done with the cherry fabric, but I had a bit leftover and it seemed worthwhile to use it on this fitting experiment.

Everything was going well until I sewed together the underarms instead of the center front seams and then proceeded to complete nearly half the bra before realizing I had made the mistake. It was only when I held it up and realized the apices were very far out to the side.

I briefly considered the misery of unpicking all of the topstitching, regular stitching, and elastic zig-zag stitching before rejecting that utterly nightmarish idea on this very stretchy knit. And I had just enough fabric to recut the front, so I did. I had to piece together the center front band on my final version, but it’s fine. I also ended up using all the leftover bits of red elastic from previous projects so most of this bralette is just made out of a bunch of leftovers, which is actually kind of theme for this project. Take 2 and the bra is actually starting to look like a bra…

This pattern is relatively quick to put together (of course, I made it as fussy as possible by double layering the cotton jersey with powernet, and nesting or enclosing all the seams before top stitching), so although I lost several hours of work and had to start over, I was still able to get it done in a day. My topstitching on the front dart is a bit puckery (which is soooo annoying because the first time I made the cups they were perfect!), but my that point I was kind of over it. The rest of the bralette came together easily though and I have a cute new cherry bralette!

Of course I had to try this on right away, and it was actually kind of perfect because I was already wearing my previous cherry Mysa so swapping them out was a direct comparison on the fit. I have to say, the new 5.7 BCD pattern fits sooooo much better. It’s a bralette, so it’s not going to give a ton of lift, but it at least prevents the droop that was happening before and honestly gives a pretty decent shape. I can already tell my back is going to be so much happier in this version of the pattern. I only needed to take out an additional 1/2″ of length from the back band, and the rest of the fit was spot on. I’ve been wearing it for while and I don’t even think about it, it’s that comfortable.

The Hive’s challenge for this month is to sew something comfy cozy, and I think this definitely counts. I didn’t make this with the intent of that being this month’s challenge; I actually had a different project in mind for the theme and I had already been planning to try the new size on the Mysa since last October, but it happened to work out. Obviously I’m incredibly pleased with the results of this experiment and I know this will get a lot of use. I’ve got some other project cut out and ready to go, so hopefully they will turn out as well as this project did and I’ll be off to a good start to my sewing projects in 2025!