Sewy Rebecca bra

 

Presenting my latest lingerie set. I’m so happy to have sewn two new complete sets recently. I’ve not been sewing lingerie in a long time and when I did, it seldom were sets. After trying other patterns I will stick to Sewy patterns (at least in the near future). Great fit for me and I’m done with disappointing patterns that don’t give me good results. I’m absolutely not saying that there is anything wrong with other patterns, but they are not for my shape. As in rtw bras, where there is only one brand that I like the fit of, this is my preferred pattern brand for bras.  

The panty/brief is also a Sewy pattern, with the same name: Rebecca.  

The second panty is a copy of a rtw one. As I’ve shown in my previous post, I used the last scraps of lace and sewn them to mesh fabric. I like the result with the trim from elastic. Not symmetrical at all this one, but glad it worked out like this. 

Most of the materials used are from Small Bobbins, with some additions from my stash. 

I did show you a photo from two kits I bought. Here’s the other set:

A new set in progress

 Isn’t this a wonderful lace? The photos don’t show the little blue light reflecting parts very well but even without these I still think it’s beautiful. I bought a kit at Small Bobbins in Belgium. I added a few parts from my stash, as the kit didn’t have any lycra and the shoulder straps were a bit narrow for me. Which was a pity, as the kit contained really special shoulder straps in velvet.

A few details of the bra.

The inside. I like the cup lining: thin but giving support. 

I’m making two panties to go with it, but as the bra took a lot of lace I had only remnants left for the second one and couldn’t cut a complete part from it. So I used mesh and put the lace on top. Then finished the cut edge with a trim from elastic. Haven’t finished the panties yet and I’m curious myself how it will look. 

Another project I almost finished, a velvet jacket. More on that one later. 

Willowdale bra and Isabelle

Sometimes it takes a while before I get to writing things down. These two bras have been finished a while ago and only now I'm taking the time to write a blog post about them. But... still trying to keep the blog alive. 

First: the Willowdale bra with the changes. A more narrow bridge/center part and increased height under the armpit. 

It looks worse on the dressform than on me but there are some wrinkles on me as well. The lycra on the cup has more stretch than the lining. I have adapted for it and made the lycra a bit smaller but apparently not enough. I'm happy with the bridge part now. Next time I will increase the height at the side even more. It's definitely wearable. 

A few photos from the inside. I didn't have the sheer lining in the right colour and opted for this beige instead. 

The other bra I made is the Isabell from Sewy, a German brand. (Sewy.de). I've been using patterns from this brand for a very, very long time now and I think they are still the best fitting bras for my figure.  I used the cup size I've used before which is also very true to RTW sizing in Europe. The only thing I changed was the width of the band. I made it smaller.

Must do that for all patterns and I get the feeling the designers forget that the hook/eye closure adds extra length to the band. Whatever the reason, it's not a difficult change when it's not the first bra you make. 

Next week is "Sewing week", my annual meet-up with my sewing friends where we sew together. One of the highlights of my year! I will be sewing one of the kits I bought and showed in the previous post. 

 

Finished bra

A nice finish is in the details.

Can you see the dart in the band? Probably because you know it’s there.

The pattern is the Isabelle from Sewy again, using a non-elastic lace (last time I used a lace with some stretch). Because of the non-eIastic lace I added a little to the upper cup pattern piece and even made a left and right pattern piece because of a small size difference. This is not really an issue when I use lace with some stretch, but in non stretch lace it’s obvious, resulting in a little ‘overflowing”. You get my drift I presume. It’s a problem I have with a couple of previously made bras too, so obviously something has changed and I have to adapt my patterns.
This bra is wearable, but I want to make it again with a few changes as I’m not completely satisfied. The added space is not quite enough and I think it would be good if the center front is a bit higher. I bought a couple of different wire sizes to experiment with. Difficult to show as for obvious reasons I don’t want to share pictures of the fitting issues on the blog.
A project for the near future, first a couple of other projects to finish.

Sewy Isabelle

I apologize if the pictures are not lined properly in this post. I always used LiveWriter for my blog posts but that doesn't seem to work since I migrated to Windows 10 and I don't want to take the time to try to find out what is wrong.

Furthermore I learned that Picasa (my favorite site for online photo-albums) will be discontinued later in the year and will be replaced by Google Photos. I've checked how that works and I'm not happy about that either. No linking to photos like I'm used to (or at least not obvious how to do it).

Absolutely no idea what that will do to the photos on my blog (and that of a lot of  blogs). And I'm not going to re-link all the photos of the past nine years!

Not my lucky tech-day as the Sewy-site seems to be down right now so I can't make a screenshot of the pattern or give a link to it. It's a very nice pattern. Here is my result and I'm ever so happy that it fits beautifully.

Inside / outside

I love it when a garment is as neat on the inside as it is on the outside.
Case in point: the bra I’m making. I’m trying a new pattern, the Sewy Isabelle that was so very kindly gifted to  me by a blog reader. Thank you again Gina!

I can’t tell you nothing about the fit right now. As those of you who made bras know you can’t judge the fit of a bra untill it’s as good as finished. As it’s a weekend with a lot of rain here, so perfect sewing weather, I hope to finish it tomorrow.

It’s been a while

Not talking about my unfrequent blogging right now. It's been a while since I last showed you some lingerie I made. These were made in December 2011, as a break from other sewing.
The first one is a Merckwaerdigh pattern, BHS10. I made it years ago and have worn it till it almost fell apart, though it took me till last month to make it again.

The pictures show the bra without shoulderstraps, I thought I had everything I needed, but those were missing. In the meantime I have finished this one, only didn’t make new pictures.
 
The V center front is part of the pattern, a nice detail, though it made construction a bit harder. Next time I will make the center front a bit less wide, just a little fit detail.

This brown one is the TNT Sewy Rebecca bra. I made this so many times now, nothing new, except playing with the lace placement a bit.

 
Most fabric and notions as always from Kantje Boord in Amsterdam.