Doctor T Designs

Over the holidays I was quite busy and didn’t have a lot of time to sew, but I was still being very inspired by some of the monthly challenges in The Hive. There were a few fun challenges like a Christmas/Holiday themed bra and a Party themed bra, and I sort of ended up combining them using last year’s sparkly White Christmas bra kit from Bra Builders. Although the kit is no longer available, the White Christmas lace is still on the website. Anyway, I was trying to get caught up on those themed projects before starting the Bee on a Wire class that went from mid-January through mid-February, so this is my last pre-Bee on a Wire bra, but it took a while to finish and post because of everything else I had going on the past few months. I am going to do a write up of the Bee on a Wire experience in a separate post (and additional posts and pattern reviews for everything I made…), so between all of that and my Kibbe book review post I actually have quite a few blog posts queued up, and it’s just a matter of how quickly I can get them finalized and posted. So, all that being said, here’s my finished winter party themed Josey!

The Josey Bra is sold as a PDF pattern at Bra Builders in two size ranges – the Josey and the Josey Plus. It’s a pattern for larger bust sizes, so I’ve really liked the fit and drafting of this pattern. I’ve detailed my history sewing this pattern over the past year, so I’m not going to deep dive on the pattern or fitting process here. It’s been my most sewn bra (I think this is my 6th version?), so I felt like I’d really perfected the fit. We’ll put a pin in that because since I’m a bit behind in posting I also made a version of the Josey for Bee on a Wire, but I’ll say that in terms of my patterns before the class, this was probably the one I’ve done the most work to dial in the fit. For this version I didn’t change much other than narrowing the bottom of the bridge on my self-drafted band (the same as I had previously used on my most recent Maya), and adjusting the cups slightly to fit into my latest band draft edit. So this was really more a project about finding creative ways to use my materials, and not as much a project focused on trying new fitting techniques.

For this project I really wanted to use every bit of the sparkly lace that I could to really emphasize the party bra theme. I drew out my plans so I could remember what I was thinking about because this project took shape over several months.

I tried to find interesting ways to apply it to the frame so it would have a continuous lace look over the cup power bar as well.

My pattern pieces weren’t large enough to include the small snowflakes from the lace, so I used them as a cover for the bra straps to help stabilize the elastic and continue the sparkly snowflake motif. I did this by sewing a tube and threading the strap elastic through it to get this effect.

I used nearly all of my kit lace on the bra, so the underwear I only had the absolute scraps to use to get a matching motif. I went minimal and placed a tiny snowflake embroidery on the design. There was also a “underwear with windows” challenge going on at the same time in The Hive, so I also tried that technique here as well.

Once the design aspect was done, the rest of construction was pretty straightforward. Overall I’m really happy with how this turned out!

I will say the white doesn’t photograph super well on my dressform because it blends in a bit, and you can see all the lumps from the padding I add to get the cups to sit correctly. However, I think the fit is generally pretty good (better on me than on the form). And I’m really happy with all of the design elements! Here are some more detailed shots of the lace placements:

I will say that I tried lining the cups with bra tulle like I did in my recent Maya, but I wasn’t entirely happy with the results. This is a bit of a spoiler, but I’m realizing that microduoplex might be best left unlined, because it has a bit more drape (even if it has less stretch or give) than most of the lining materials, and this tends to result in a slightly puckered look after I’m done sewing. Generally it’s not enough to impact the look under clothing, but it is enough to make me feel a bit grumpy about the way the cup looks when I’m done sewing. It’s only really evident when the cup is in use – flat it’s impossible to tell that there are construction issues, and since it’s not evident under clothes I’ll live with it. But I will say that there have been quite a few changes to my technique after taking the Bee on a Wire class, and I think I might be team no lining with microduoplex. I haven’t run into the same issue with regular duoplex, but I think I need to do further experiments and report back.

All that being said, I’m generally very pleased with how this project turned out. I had a lot of fun with the design, and I feel like I was able to explore some new techniques, especially in making the underwear. I don’t tend to have a lot of white bras or underwear, so it’s nice to have an option for that now. As much as I’ve had fun making the winter holiday themes, now that it’s mid-February I’m feeling ready to make something a bit more spring-y, so I’m happy to have this project finally finished. And I’m excited to share everything I’ve made since this bra in my upcoming posts. More coming soon!