On lingerie fabric and notions

Regularly I'm asked where I buy my fabrics and notions for lingerie sewing.I'll repeat the information that I wrote before.

Kantje-Boord in Amsterdam. Their site has recently been changed, and partly still under construction. Their pictures take a long time to show, which makes navigating a bit difficult. The site is in Dutch only. As I don't live too far away, I go there myself and find combinations of lace/lycra and notions that I like. I went today and bought some great stuff.

If you want to order from outside the Netherlands, best write an e-mail I think. They sell packages with lycra, lace and all notions (except underwires) you need for 1 bra and two panties. It's a small shop, but I've never seen so much lingerie fabrics and notions in one place.

Further I regularly buy at a local store in my hometown, from the lady who owns it I learned the basics of sewing lingerie. Beautiful stuff, but expensive. And no online shopping.

Real online stores:

Elingeria: a German store, I had good experience buying Sewy patterns from them, and some other bloggers (Melissa and LauraLo) have bought their fabrics and notions there and were positive about it.

Merckwaerdigh: an e-bay store of a Dutch lady who sells her own patterns and some fabrics/notions. She writes the description also in English. (Don't know her personally, but she is a reliable vendor)

Exclusive Stoffe, look for the heading "Alles für Dessous". It's been a while since I ordered there, but what I got was very nice.

Wien 2002: a new find in Austria, I have not yet ordered there, as the site shows relatively a lot that is not in stock any more/at the moment. But they do show nice things, and I might try it in the near future.

Danglez: a Dutch lady who started selling packages and her own patterns and will be adding English and German translations. I'm trying one of her patterns at the moment.

I've said it before, I don't have any information on stores outside Europe. With so many local and European possibilities, no reason to pay the high shipping costs. In the past I did look around, but never found any store with a good choice of fabrics/notions, combined with a clear presentation. If anyone of you knows good sources, please post in the comments.

New blog

After so many links one new blog to discover: Nancy K sews. Nancy is a regular commenter on my blog, and we have e-mailed each other regularly the past year. I regard her as one of the sewing friends I made on the internet, and are happy to see she's taken the plunge, as she said herself. I'll love to follow her projects.

Answers

Lena asked a question in German. I'll answer in English, as I find writing in German difficult. She asked why my bra's always fit so good. The real answer is that is the case because I made a lot of less good fitting bra's when I started. With each bra it became better, and now I know how to tweak my patterns. In that lingerie sewing is no different from any other type of garments: it takes time to reach good fit, the only difference is that you only know the fit after the bra is finished almost completely. And I know the frustration of a lot of work with the result something I can't wear!

Most of my bra's are variations on a self drafted pattern. But I've tried Sewy and Merckwaerdigh patterns too, but usual it takes at least two bra's to have good fit. I've no experience with the Marinique patterns, and didn't know them till my google search after your comment. One of the panty patterns looks very similar to my last one!

Vicky asked for the time I spent: it was only for the panty! My goodness, if I could sew a set within an hour I'd start a business :) It takes me about 3 hours to sew a bra. That is without cutting, which always takes some time to make it symmetrical.