I feel like the months this year have been flying past. Although I haven’t been super active on the blog, I did manage to get some sewing in this month! I don’t have a ton of finished projects yet, but I am really happy with where I managed to get in the fitting process and I’m hoping to have an industrious weekend ahead where I can finish up a lot of the projects I started this past month.
Sewing Progress
This month I participated in the Fit Clinic hosted by Bra Builders, so I was working on fitting yet more bra patterns. I feel like I’ve been poking at trying to figure out my fit for years, and each test and class I feel like I keep getting closer and closer, but after this class I think I’ve finally found the magical combination of wire and sizing and band adjustments. I don’t have a finished bra yet, but I wore a fit sample for a whole day and it was so comfortable. I ran into some shipping issues this month, which led to me waiting on yet more wires and supplies, so I also took a detour into the land of fitting wireless bras. It’s not much to look at, but here are a few of the bra samples I’ve been working on:
The Make Bra DL02 might be my new favorite bra pattern, and I haven’t even made a final version yet! It has really interesting style lines, a great shape, and it’s really comfortable. I don’t know if I would recommend this pattern to a beginner because the instructions are a little bit sparse, but the drafting on this pattern can’t be beat. I have a first final version cut out and ready to sew up soon. If I like how that one feels I have plans to make several others in short order.
The Lanai Wireless pattern from LilyPADesigns was one of the detours I took this month while waiting for some larger wire sizes to arrive. I feel like this pattern is going to take quite a bit of finessing to get it to something I’m happy with, but I was happy to get notes and ideas during this class for next steps. I think I might return to this pattern in late summer when I have more time to really devote and focus on all of the fit changes that need to happen.
The third pattern I worked on was the Aphrodite Bralette from Porcelynne. I actually really like how supportive this pattern is for a bralette and it has some interesting construction features. I managed to finish a version of this pattern, though I have some matching bottoms cut out that I still need to sew. This one seemed to fit me right out of the package, which was both surprising and a welcome change. It’s definitely not the same support as a bra, but it is very comfortable to wear and it provides a lot more support than most of the other bralette patterns I’ve tried.
Of course, I’ll eventually do more in depth pattern reviews of each of these once I have some fancier versions to show off, but it was nice to get started on a lot of patterns that have been on my to-sew list for a long time.
Sewing Delays
I did have some travel this month, assorted obligations, and visiting family, but overall I did dedicate a fair bit of time to sewing for this class, and I think that paid off because I feel like I have an exciting direction to go with patterns and fitting now.
Finished Projects
Since part of the matching set is still unsewn, I don’t know if we can properly call it “finished,” but here is a sneak peak at my first version of the Aphrodite:
I still need to wear test this and write up a proper review, but I think it turned out really cute!
WIPs & Upcoming Plans
Obviously, the DL02, Lanai, and Aphrodite are WIPs that I’m going to be working on for a while. I also want to go through some of my existing bras and try swapping out wires to see how that might impact the wearability of some of the bras I’ve made in the past. I also have about 15 versions of the DL02 that I want to make now, so stay tuned for that I guess. I expect these projects will take up much of my limited free time in the next few months, but I’m hoping to get back to re-fitting the B,Wear patterns and the Cashmerette Willowdale after that. I also want to revisit some of the patterns I fit last year during the Bee on a Wire class and adjust them to fit my new preferred wire size (50 Vertical) to see if that can resolve some of the lingering issues I’ve felt while wearing what otherwise seem like great fitting patterns. Overall I have a lot of tinkering and experimenting I want to try over the next few months, and I will see how far I can get with my otherwise very busy schedule.
Doctor T Designs 