Bra school

Well I am done.


My classes for this term that is. Now I can pick up my creative life for a bit.


Last Saturday I kicked that off with a fantastic day with bra-maker extraordinaire Tory LeBlanc where we custom-fitted and sewed a prototype bra.


I have made bras before with some success but wanted a second opinion on fit. What I got at Tory's class was actually far much more.


First the final product:

Now this just looks like a fairly standard bra but what you can't see is the best part, a completely flawless, can't-be-improved-upon-in-any-way, fit. 


Can't show you that since this is a family blog and I can see the headlines now:


Middle-aged teacher posts pictures of herself in her underwear on the internet. Students mortified.


Back to the bra. Absolutely perfect, not a wrinkle, not a tweek required, great comfort, and terrific support. I started out by saying to Tory that the thing I didn't like about self-made bras was the seam, which showed in T shirts, and she told me that with the right fit and construction you can't see that seam.


She's right.


I wore this bra under a knit top yesterday and it was as smooth as those ride up foam-cup numbers you get from the store.


I cannot recommend the help of a good teacher, this teacher, enough. Tory only teaches small groups, there were only three of us in the class, and she gives private lessons. There is time enough to get the fit right and to really have good advice on technique. I, for example, was told to use more pins, I did and it made a huge difference:

I think the difference between teaching yourself how to make a bra and a good teacher is the experience gap. Tory has made thousands and frankly she really knows boobs. I ended up with an altered band size (I am between sizes), a different cup size, and a totally different underwire size than I was expecting.


And it worked.


Tory also give more designer classes on how to customize the basic pattern to a different style, and she thinks I should make a bustier. To be honest I think I have about as much use in my life for a bustier as I would say, a dog sled, but changing things up a bit from the standard issue might be interesting. 


The one thing I can see myself getting into is dyeing and here are some samples of bra fabric done in Kool Aid. The darker samples are those that were left in the Kool Aid a long time and the lighter ones just went in and out:

Finally here is her email as Tory says she is interested in doing workshops for groups anywhere who are interested.


Now off to work on my neglected house and my Christmas projects, more later.

Bra report in stages: the pattern, adjustments and thoughts

OK, it has been a flat out week with all my projects but here is the bra report. I am going to post this in stages with different headlines to get my thoughts in order.

I have made two cotton/lycra bras, (one with cotton eyelet overlay in the upper cup, one with stretch lace as a second layer in the upper cup),  one with one shiny tricot with woven lace layer in the upper cup, and one sort of matte heavy weight knit with stretch eyelet over lay in upper cup.

None of these bras are as fancy as those I have seen other sewers make, but they fit me well, are comfortable (the cotton interlock are of course my favourite), and have got me to the point where I am construction confident enough to get more creative. I have four more cut out in black.

First of all this is a really well drafted pattern. Things that need to be the same size so they fit together later in construction actually are and actually do. This hardly ever happens so I am pleased. I also really like that the straps are made of fabric to match the fronts well over the shoulders.

My first bra was so weird even Rascal laughed, it looked like something that a 90 year old would have worn in 1922 if you can picture that, but I quickly realized that I had the same problem Robin reported when she used this pattern and that was that the pieces under the arm were too large, that explained why it was falling forward on my front. Robin solved this with an underarm dart and I did essentially the same thing by changing the angle (straightening them really) on the front and back pieces that met in the side seam to eliminate that extra. Worked great and my fitting issues were 90% solved. The final 10% was achieved by taking in the cup seam a little as it neared the underarm.

The bad thing about fitting a bra is that you have to actually complete the whole thing before you can access fit (make you first one with your worst stuff) the good thing is that there are so few seams that there are really a limited number of places where you have to adjust and small adjustments make a big difference.

If you can face making one or two bras to perfect your fit (about an afternoon each if you are just learning) you will have a reliable pattern to make something for next to nothing that can cost a fortune in the stores. Next to nothing if you are working with leftovers or have collected the materials along the way. More on supplies later.

As I wanted to make a wireless bra I did these things for extra support:

1. The pattern calls for one layer of lingerie type tricot for the under and between the breasts part on the front. I substituted a layer of Powernet which I think worked quite well.

2. All sewn bras have at least one seam, as this one does across the cup. This has some disadvantages for T shirt wear (and I have posted a picture of one bra in a too tight T shirt so you both see what I mean and so you can see the kind of non-wireless support I got). The instructions tell you to use a single layer for each and to top stitch the seam allowances open. I don't do that all that well with 1/4" seams in tricot and in some cases (like the one shown here) did a triple zig zag instead. I am not happy with this as of course it articulates this seam even more, so in later versions ( I made four successive bras) I cut the bottom cup twice and sandwiched the upper cup between the two and flipped it up, encasing the seam, which was much nicer.

3. On the subject of cups I did all the lower cups double (see above) and I would advise that.

Finally how supportive are these wireless bras? Pretty good I would say and enormously comfortable. I have some wires and will do another version soon with those to see, but putting them up to my bras I would say they do add shape to the cup and definitely move the cup in at centre front right up to your sternum that extra little bit.

My analysis: if bra less is 0% support, these wireless are about an 87% and I figure the same bra with wires would be about 93-94%. 100% would be my expensive bra that holds me up and completely rigid and leaves bright red marks in my chest bone and all around my body.

I also calculate that my wireless version is about 11-13% more comfortable than the same version would be with wires. But that needs to be field tested.

You do the math.

Bra making here we come

I should start at the beginning, OK the pre-beginning.

In the last couple of months or so I have noticed that some of my favourite sewers have embarked on bra-making adventures. Sigrid started it, Liana continued it and Robin got involved too. Since each of these sewers always makes things I would like to wear myself I spent more than a few late nights looking at their blogs, following their links and generally considering the concept of bra-making.

There are a couple of reasons why I have not got into this bra-making thing myself. First it looked all a little fiddly to me - if I was good at that sort of sewing I think I would be a quilter and I am not. Also there seem to be a lot of hard to source parts to the whole thing, and I thought all those across the bust seams would show through knits, and as a general policy I don't like to sew what I can buy cheaper (OK that's not at all true, let's be honest it is the fiddly thing that got me). However the bras online that I see other sewers making look very pretty so let's say that the idea was planted in my mind, and there isn't a new area of sewing adventure that generally doesn't eventually get to me.

OK. On Friday I got my hair cut. My hairdresser has a strategic chair on the second floor of a building on the corner of our best shopping street. As he cut away and in between our catching up (he has done my hair for 20 years and once brought me a lasagna when the kids were little and I had pneumonia) I looked at all the women pass on the street below and thought to myself if there was one thing they could do to improve their appearance what would that be, and I decided it was a better bra. In the summer in all those T shirts there are a lot of poorly supported bosoms out there.

This got me thinking, and really my own bras aren't that comfortable. I don't really like the ones I wear to work (yes I have comfortable old knit bras for the weekend) and I often suffer from a urge to haul them down. 

Which brings me to shoes. A while ago now I decided to buy fewer shoes but to spend whatever it took to have shoes that are really comfortable but also have some style. I walk a lot, and walk to work, and the concept of work shoes that I can't walk any distance in is something I feel I have outgrown and have a right to outgrow at this age.

So now I spend more than I ever thought I would on shoes but am saving money because I buy fewer pairs - and I am happy to wear what I wear to work on the weekends.

You see where I am going with this.

In fact where I actually went after my haircut was down the street to a fancy lingerie shop with a  " Bra fitting specialists" sign in the window. I walked and and just said "fit me." And they did.

Well what I ended up with (pictured above) was a bra two band sizes smaller and two cup sizes larger than anything I have ever worn in my life. It fit and it felt great. The price, well we won't be talking about that, let's just say I won't be buying a lot of fabric over the next couple of months, and that when they brought me the matching panties at $90 I don't know who had a greater fit me or all my Scottish immigrant ancestors or the Prairie farmer grandparents. My people don't spend that on underwear. But I did buy that bra - for research purposes and to own something that fit - I am considering this tuition money and it more or less is.

You will notice something about this bra though, a couple of things. First is there is next to nothing to it 1/8 of fabric and a couple of yards of elastic. You will also see that it has seams and looks completely sewable.

This purchase has been followed by an incredible amount of pattern surfing/sourcing. I liked the European patterns a lot and tried to find one that looked like the research bra but also saw this. The Bravo bra is a new pattern designed by Anne from Needlenook's daughter  Monica and that lead to a really nice conversation with Anne herself (when I was supposed to be engaged in heavy duty company's coming house cleaning and bed assigning for 5 incoming guests). Anne incredibly has volunteered to send me a few fitting bras to try on to see what I think before I try a pattern. 

I think I am about to start something new, stay with me, as the ultimate Ordinary Sewer, who knows where this is going to go.