Doctor T Designs

I… honestly can’t even really believe it’s the end of May. It didn’t seem like it while I was going through it, but now that I’m a bit more caught up with reality it feels like I lost a lot of time to the vortex of jury duty. This month has been busy, and the start of the summer intensity has commenced, so I didn’t feel like there was too much sewing to share, but then I realized all the projects that were started last month were finished this month, so, that’s not exactly true. Aside from the small projects I was able to finish up, I have also been managing to get a few minutes here and there to play with some new things. I’m usually more motivated to sew when I have a big chunk of time, but I’m trying a new approach to make slow and steady progress, and that seems to actually be working out pretty well this month.

Sewing Progress

I spent the first half of the month finishing up projects that had been sitting on my cutting table since March. It was pretty fast because I just had to sew everything together, and it was nice to just be able to get a lot of these projects out of the to-sew pile and into the done pile.

Now that those projects are done, I’m moving on to some new patterns. While I’ve been wanting to work on grander scale wardrobe planning and sewing real clothes, I haven’t had a lot of time or creative energy to put towards it, so I decided to work on fitting some bra patterns that I’ve had in my stash or need to re-fit now that I’ve somewhat dialed in my size. I’ve decided to somewhat batch-fit patterns from the same brand because I think (1) it gives a lot of insight into the drafting and (2) hopefully a lot of the fit alterations will be similar, which should make fitting faster. After putting together my pattern analysis class for the Bee, I identified a few patterns and brands that seemed like they would be very easy for me to fit (and others that seemed like they would be a lot more work), so I decided to start with some of what will hopefully be the “easy” options since I won’t have a lot of time to sew the next few months. The first four patterns I’m trying to fit are all the somewhat “standard” underwire bra patterns from LilyPADesigns – the Labellum, Lamina, Lusamine, and the newest one, the Lazulite.

I’ve made the Lusamine before, but at the time I didn’t really have good measurements for my starting size, so it was a lot of work to fit and still came out a tiny bit too large. I also realized I was using the wrong sizing range to start from, so I’m basically treating this as a total re-do and starting from scratch with the pattern. So far I’ve made some fit samples and it’s going well. I think I basically need to take in one fairly sizable dart at the underarm and make a few tiny adjustments to the band and I should be good to go. I’m even thinking I can be a bit reckless and just jump to making the final version because the fit is really pretty good. Interestingly, I did notice that the older patterns (Labellum and Lamina) have the same band pattern, and the Lusamine and Lazulite have a different band pattern, but they fit pretty similarly. One thing that was a bit surprising though was how low some of these styles were. I even went back to check the product photography to see where the wires are supposed to end in the front, and they actually are pretty low on the body. I was debating if I wanted to make edits to have a more full coverage cup, but I think for now I’m going to leave it because it should give me more options for which type of shirts I can wear with them, and also because some of the Pin-up Girls patterns I made earlier this year are similar styles but completely full coverage, so it will be nice to have the options. I don’t know how soon I will get around to having more project updates, but the batch fitting has been a successful experiment so far.

Sewing Delays

Not too much travel this month, but it did feel like I had something to do every weekend. I’ve been putting in 10-30 minutes where I can, and while it feels like I’m dragging on everything, when I look back I can definitely see the progress.

Finished Projects

All of my long-term WIPs from the start of the year finally got finished! I had already made four of the bras, but I finally finished up the bottoms of the sets. I was also able to make a second version of the AFI Elegance using a stretch upper cup and it turned out much better. I’m really happy to have finally got all of these off of my cutting table and into my wardrobe!

I was really happy I tried different materials and experimented a bit here. I really like the black fancy picot elastic I used on the last set – it’s really comfortable to wear and it’s super cute. I’m not so in love with the fancy ball elastic on the magenta dots. Using the coverstitch looks really nice as a finish, but it ended up being super bulky and just wasn’t as comfortable. The lace leg elastics were the opposite – very nice and thin, but I need to make my stitches a bit wider because they need a bit of repair already. Happily, while I was worried about the rigid floral lace on the front of the purple pair not stretching enough, those are actually very comfortable to wear. I think fold over elastic is still going to be my TNT finish, but it’s nice to know what other materials are at my disposal to play with moving forward.

WIPs & Upcoming Plans

Obviously I’m still working on the LilyPAD patterns as my current WIPs. I’m planning to move on to the B,Wear pattern line after that (they released the Angie’s Twin and the Jessica’s Twin in expanded sizing, so I’m very excited to see if I can get a better fit on those patterns, because my first several versions are starting to be a bit on the small side), and then maybe a few one-offs (like the Willowdale, the Black Beauty, etc.) that come from a bunch of different brands. Of course, I’m still looking to do some more thoughtful wardrobe planning and get back to sewing other types of garments, but likely not until later in the summer months. I’ve had the itch to go hunting my white whale (making a button down shirt) this year. Batch testing bra patterns has inspired me to perhaps also try a head to head pattern gauntlet to see if I can find one shirt pattern to rule them all! Or at least let me make some nice collared shirts that I can wear to work and on Zoom calls before this year is out. Not sure how much sewing I’ll get in during June, but I’m hoping more slow and steady progress will result in something wearable next month too.