Doctor T Designs

Obviously, I haven’t been super active on the blog this month. A lot of non-sewing things have been taking up my time, attention, and energy, but I do finally have a few WIPs cut out and hopefully I can get to them in short order. This month feels like it has at the same time taken forever and flown by. I don’t have a ton to share in terms of sewing things, but here’s a look back at my month!

Sewing Progress

I haven’t really had a lot of time to sew, but I have started my second AFI Elegance bra. Even though I’m still obsessed with the colors, I didn’t love the way the first version fit because the lace on the upper cup didn’t stretch. This time I’m trying a completely stretch upper cup to see if it will fix the profile for this pattern. I still need to add all the elastics and hardware, but I think it’s coming out pretty cute so far.

I’ve also finally cut out a bunch of matching bottoms to go with the bras I made for Bee on a Wire, as well as my current Elegance WIP. I haven’t started sewing these yet, but I’m planning to dive into this pile after I finish the Elegance.

I haven’t had a lot of energy to sew this month, so I’ve actually just been doing a lot of organizing of the stash. I haven’t fully put everything away yet, but I have been putting all of my laces on comic boards so I can easily store them in my lace bins.

I also got some cotton jersey at a sale from Cali Fabrics a while back, and I’ve finally got that pre-washed and folded too.

So, overall not a ton of sewing progress, but still a little bit this month, which is definitely better than nothing!

Sewing Delays

I feel like this month has been full of sewing delays. I had several weekend trips, and over the past two months I was part of a jury on what ended up being a six week trial. That whole experience was mentally and emotionally draining, so even though I had time, I just wasn’t finding myself in the headspace of wanting to sew when I came home from court. I don’t think I can really fully describe what jury duty was like; but suffice it to say that everyone on the jury left feeling like we had made the right decision.

Finished Projects

No finished sewing projects, though the video class I made for the 2025 Bra Sewing Bee went live this month. I’m not sure how intertwined everyone on the internet is with the bra sewing community and the payment disputes that have come up surrounding the Bee, or how aware everyone is that The Hive shut down shortly after this year’s conference due to health concerns of the owner brought on by the stress of this situation. I’m sure that acknowledging I still participated in the Bee this year will probably will anger some readers, and that even bringing up these issues on the blog at all will be seen as a painful betrayal for others. But these things did happen, so I do feel the need to acknowledge them here. And if nothing else from my six weeks of jury duty, I did learn the importance of letting both sides build their case, and the importance of being honest, even if it is to your own detriment. For me this is an issue between those teachers, the management of the Bee, and their lawyers and accountants. At this point and based on my own experiences I am remaining neutral on this topic; I want to continue to support this community and I’ll still be buying and sewing patterns and using materials from the shops of the teachers who have made the accusations, and I would still go back to support The Hive and The Bee were it to come to life again. For my own part in all of this, I will say the allegations from the former teachers of the Bee were made public after I had already completed and submitted my video class to the Bee for this year, and that I wanted to uphold my obligation to the attendees of the Bee who had signed up to take the classes this year. I will also state that I personally did not have any issues with compensation for my class. I am sad that the community that had been built on The Hive has dissipated, and I do miss hanging out with a lot of the other people I had made friends with there. I hope that everyone involved can come to an understanding and reconcile their differences, but, as I said, none of that really involves me in a direct way since I only taught one class this year, and the issues brought forth are from the teachers at previous Bees. It should be a truth universally acknowledged, that if a community exists on the internet, it must succumb to internet drama at some point. And as with all internet drama, I think that things will move on, eventually. Of course, how and when remains to be seen. I enjoyed teaching my class for the Bee, and I was honestly overwhelmed by some of the praise I received from other teachers I consider to be true mentors in the bra sewing space. I wouldn’t take it back, and I’m happy I was able to participate this year. But, I do want to stay out of sewing drama if I can. Everything else in life is full of drama and stress; sewing was always supposed to be the happy place away from that for me. At the end of the day the biggest thing I’ve taken for myself from all of this is to hold firm in the future and to never monetize my hobbies. I’ve learned this lesson before, but every time I take money for anything related to sewing life seems to come smack me upside the head for it. Duly noted universe. Duly noted.

WIPs & Upcoming Plans

This month was a lot between the trial, the Bee, and my obligations to my other activities. At this point, I feel like I need to get back into the rhythm of sewing and, frankly, just back into the rhythm of real life. Sewing-wise, I have quite a few WIPs cut out ready to sew. I’m going to try and get through as many of those as I can next month, and see where I’m at. I never had the time to make another McCall’s dress for the wedding (I wore my green Burda 6941 from a while back), and at this point I’m really feeling the itch to work on other clothes and wardrobe planning. I do still have a lot of bra patterns I want to work on, and, I’ll be honest, I probably won’t have a lot of time to work on big projects for a few months. So likely it’ll still be a lot of bra sewing for the immediate future because I feel like I will be able to handle those smaller projects better in the grand scheme of life. But now that the trial is over I’m hoping I’ll have more time and energy, so, we shall see what I’m in the mood to work on over the next month!