Mermaid underwear -BRAugust - my first attemps at Bra making

This is certainly NOT the best thing I have ever made. This is though, my first attempt at underwear.These are made from McCalls M5665 which I bought years ago and it was already discontinued then so I have no idea if you can still buy this pattern.

I bought some very cheap mermaid scale fabric off ebay. I would not recommend this stuff. Its supposed to be polyester/lycra. Its very un-stretchy. I actually intended to make leggings but ended up making underwear instead and to be honest it does work and at least I know the pattern will fit me ( or at the least how to make it fit me!) but its not very successful at all. Having said that I have worn these for work which was a risk and I was not uncomfortable despite the imperfections.

The rest is fold over elastic trimming the bra and the knickers have stretch lace edging.



I actually made the striped bra a few years back. This striped version is much better because its more stretchy but still not very good. That really is down to me though because I had just started sewing and was no way good enough to cope with bra making. I abandoned the idea of making underwear after that attempt which was back in 2013 before I had even really started sewing and long before the blog.

In both versions of the bra there are no proper fasteners. The straps should have sliders but the back does not have any fastenings. That is how the pattern is made. The back is just one piece so its a pull over the head type of bra. In my case the pattern in both of these versions is wrong in that the back piece is huge. Its just too big for my body.






















I had to take out loads of fabric from CB ( a good 10cm or 4 inches) which means adding a seam which stops it being comfortable. Also I removed the excess fabric after sewing up hence its not finished that well really because the edges are previously all bound in fold over elastic.

Since both versions have the same problem the conclusion is its not me, its the pattern. I will know for next time because probably I will make another of these so thats something I will make sure I do right next time.

The mermaid bra will not last long because the fabric is too non-stretchy but in the other stripey bra the fabric has just about as much stretch as possible and has been around for a while now. 

Sadly I have non of this fabric left. It was all used on other projects. I made a skirt already from the scraps and leggings and a shrug so I got my moneys worth from my couple of metres of that stripey fabric. I just wish I had bought more of it when it was available because as you can see from my previous items it dyes well too! The bra is the original colour of this stuff.

For the knickers gusset liner I used a scrap left over from my tie dyed T shirt so not quite conventional gusset material but hey why not?

 

The knickers are comfortable. It would be good if they were more stretchy but I will definitely be using that pattern again.

Neither bra has a lining so these are very basic starter underwear but they have got me to feel its worth pursuing making bras and knickers despite these are not the best examples possible.

So my thoughts about this are that I should jump on the bra making band wagon and make more underwear. Maybe use up scraps to match my main garments. This would especially be good with for example my recently made pink dress because you can see my bra just slightly through the fabric so making a matching bra and knickers would be really good and I do have some offcuts left from this project to have a play with. I am though drawn to the free Madalynne bra patterns so I intend to make one of them next I think.

Until next week then.........

Bracken