There seems to be a resurgence of interest in sewing lingerie and there are amazing classes on Craftsy by experts in the field, so I've developed interest once again. I pulled those two almost finished bras out of my to-do box and plan on finishing those up in a week or two. I also discovered that I had cut out, all ready to go - my favorite sports/nursing bra - so I sewed that up today.
I don't nurse anymore but it's still an amazingly comfortable bra - great for lounging and enough support for a yoga class.
The pattern is by Jan Bones of Lingerie Secrets. I met her and took a class from her a few years ago at the American Sewing Expo in Novi, Michigan. She's incredibly gifted and a great teacher. She makes sewing knits and elastic applications understandable and easy. Here's a link to her website: Sewing Lingerie
I used a cheap cotton lycra fabric from my stash and elastics from Sew Sassy - my go to source for lingerie sewing supplies.
Here's quick how-to on sewing the elastic edges:
On the top edges I used this technique:
- My regular sewing foot has two red markings that are exactly 4.0 mm apart and mark the exact width of my zig-zag stitch. I sew on on the very edge of the left side of the elastic, using the red marks as my guide
- After attaching the elastic on the wrong side it should look like this
- Then fold it down and stitch on the folded edge - same zig-zag stitch
- When you flip it over you'll have a lovely finished edge. I used black thread so it could easily be seen for the illustration, but I prefer to use thread the same color as my fabric.
I'll show the fold-over elastic application in my next post. I'm making another bra from a new pattern I just bought from Ohhh Lulu
It uses fold over elastic to bind all the edges.
Be comfy and make something beautiful!
Jen
