All last week I was working on the fitting of the bra and redrafting the parts to get it to work correctly for my current body. I finally got everything worked out and Friday night and yesterday I cut out the next bras. Yes. That is a plural. I figured that I have two that will be done with black thread so I may as well go ahead and do them at the same time in assembly line fashion. Although as I'm short on black elastic one may be black and white by the time the elastic gets added.
Got everything all ready to go, machine set with the black thread and bobbin, just sat down to start, and BAM! Our power went out. We've had lovely sunny and hot weather up until yesterday. Then all of a sudden we got a really great rain storm through. Something hit the power lines, and we were out of electricity for a while.
I had promised hubby that if he'd grate carrots and apples, I'd make him a new muffin recipe I found for gluten free bran muffins. He was almost through with the grating, and the oven was pre-heating also. So the almost ready muffin parts got set aside. The oven was off, the machines were off, the iron was off, and the lights were out.
What to do? It was just around lunch time so we both got cleaned up and went out to lunch across town where they weren't having power problems! Then went to the grocery store too while we were out.
A few hours later, the power was back on. I got the muffins into the oven... quite good by the way... and got back to the sewing room.
I promised to take pictures, but of course I forgot part of it. At the same time, I decided to type up my own version of the instructions that I could print out with pictures. Dini is doing a translation from Dutch and doesn't do all the pictures that most of us are used to using in the US to puzzle things out. I realized I need to have the instruction printed out in a way that will remind me of things I forget, and it is easier with the pictures included since I don't do these every week and will forget between sessions. I will see if I can figure out how to post them in a separate area on the blog for anyone interested.
So. A few comments that have got me thinking about bra making that I would like to respond to.
Bra making isn't really scary and IMO is much easier than a lot of items that you all sew every day. It is a little time consuming for such a small garment. The really good news is that your topstitching doesn't have to be perfect as no one will see it unless you allow them to do so. If your sewing isn't perfect, no one will know so long as you haven't messed up the fit. If you can go with a custom pattern from Dini, it will fit out of the envelope and you don't have to worry at all about fit.
I never liked wearing a bra, but as I aged and got a little larger, it was a necessary evil. I would remove it at the first possible opportunity when I got home and did without whenever possible. Then I had my first custom made bra. If you have the fit correct, it's no more uncomfortable than wearing a tee shirt. No more squeezing in the wrong places, sticking out in the wrong places, and underwires digging into sensitive areas. So it's worth it IMO to have a custom bra. That said, I did buy a complete set of underwires from Bra Makers Supply in order to find the right ones for me. The have a set you can get for what I considered a reasonable price, and so you can try them on to see which size is right for you. You have to get them the same size as the base of your breasts in width and hopefully you can find the right height also. If not, they are easily altered in height.
Now... a sneak peak of progress. This picture is of my ironing board with my two that are under construction sitting on top of my laptop where I'm typing instructions at the same time.
I'm hoping to have these moving forward rapidly at this point. The bridge piece has been attached at the top, turned, and basted at the bottom, then attached to the bra back piece. The front cups have been sewn at the top with a piece of clear elastic in the seam line, turned, and the balance basted together. The lower cups have been basted wrong sides together. The upper and lower cups are currently pinned together waiting for stitching. I'll try to document better the rest of the day!
Have a fabulous day.
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