If September felt like an odd mix of fast and slow, October has been a whirlwind. It always seems like the “less busy” months somehow feel more so; probably because I try to cram all of the things in I haven’t had time for during the other months. Happily, I took another of the Fit Clinics run through Bra Builders, so I’ve actually been in a whirlwind of sewing projects the past few weeks, though posting the projects I’ve made to the blog is going to take a bit more time, and I’ve still got a backlog of things to post from my summer sewing, so it may not seem like I’ve been doing as much sewing as I have on here. And I do need to shift focus for the start of September. Maybe my before-New-Year’s resolution is to be caught up on posting by the time it’s time to make New Year’s resolutions.
Sewing Progress
I actually did quite a bit of sewing this month, especially during the Bra Builders Fit Clinic I participated in the past few weeks. I have really been enjoying the Fit Clinics because we all bring our own projects and patterns that we want to work on, so we can get fitting help on a project we want to do. My goal for this session was to re-fit the B,Wear Angie’s Twin because I really loved that pattern when I made it previously, but that version is too small now. At the time I had made a modification of the largest size, but happily the size range on this pattern and on the Jessica’s Twin has now been expanded, so I was excited to try it again. I’m very excited to say that the fitting process was a success and I’ll hopefully be posting more about the updated Angie’s Twin soon (well, maybe not soon, but eventually). Since the fitting went so well, I was able to go through my entire B,Wear pattern collection and re-fit all of the patterns to my new size. Ironically, the Margareta, which has the most seaming and should theoretically have been the “easiest” to fit actually took the most effort to get right. But I have five more patterns that I can use now, which is quite the expansion to my current pile of favorites. I have some fun versions that I’ll get around to posting eventually, but for now here’s a lot of in-progress photos where I was doing fit samples and testing.
The B,Wear band patterns aren’t all identical, but they are close enough that I figured by the time I went through the process of adjusting them they would end up identical, so once I had a good fit on the band I just used that to fit all of the other patterns and cups, which made the process really fast. I will say that I have been rather enjoying the process of fitting patterns from the same brand in batches; seeing what is the same and what is different in the drafts, as well as narrowing in on a size for everything all at once is very convenient. I’ll save the droning on about the patterns for the updated review posts but the final band I ended up with on this pattern is super comfortable and I’m really excited to make some wearable versions from the patterns I ended up with.
Sewing Delays
Aside from a quick weekend trip and some hectic work days, there hasn’t really been as many long trips eating into sewing time this month. Since it’s vaccine season, I did lose some time to feeling unwell from the boosters, and I have been feeling generally quite tired. Because of the Fit Clinic I have actually spent more time sewing this month that I usually do, but my other obligations are definitely behind because of it, so the balance needs to swing a bit through the end of the year. I am really glad the Fit Clinic was just 2 weeks long; it felt like a good amount of time to be so intense with the focus before the rest of life got too far out of hand.
Finished Projects
This month I’ve finished two new bra sets using the techniques and patterns I used during the Fit Clinic. I hope to be posting about them soon because I used some new techniques and want to provide a bit more depth on the write up, but I’m very excited by my current library of pattern options that fit and are super comfortable.
WIPs & Upcoming Plans
I honestly have too many upcoming plans and not enough time. After the patterns I was able to finalize during the Fit Clinic, I have at least 3-4 bra kits queued up that just need to be cut and sewn, and I’m excited because my size changed at the start of this year, so nearly all the bras I worked on last year are too small already. I’m (hopefully?) seeming to have stabilized a bit since then, so I’ve been wearing a lot of what I’ve made this year. In addition to sewing up patterns that I’ve already worked to fit, I want to revisit some of the patterns that I made several years ago, including the Sahaara and the Willowdale. I feel like the experience I’ve gained over the past few years working with different materials, patterns, and going through size transitions has me wanting to re-visit a lot of the things I did in the past from a different perspective and see what happens. I also want to try the new Rubie’s Bras Rani pattern; I’m near the top of the size range but I’ve heard good things, so I am curious to test it out, and I have a few patterns I want to test for my Rapid Undie Reviews series as well. I’m also determined to sew something that’s not a bra by the end of the year, though I expect that might be a December project and not a November one. And, of course, a list this long doesn’t really jive with the “I need to focus on not sewing things for a while” statement I made above, but I feel like I’m excited to work on things now, I’ve got a bit more time than the spring and summer, and if I have a slow but steady approach I am excited to see how much I can accomplish by the end of the year.
Happy Halloween!
