#bust cups

[dngrcpckwithmurdericing]

More disabled sewing with Ivinenn!

Today on Disabled Sewing With Ivinenn, we have part 2 of bra-making. This post is also available at Dreamwidth for the full web 1.0 experience.

Part 1 is at this link for Tumblr; at this link for Dreamwidth.

I forgot to write a post about finishing my version of the Lengberg Castle bra! So here is what it ended up looking like on me:

It turned out very very comfortable, but not quite what I wanted - the darts just felt really wrong. You can see in this picture that I actually made the darts face different ways for each cup to see which was better, but I did not like either:

It also had way too much ease, even after I marked it up and modified it to be tighter:

So I started another garment, this time determined to move the darts into gathers on the bottom and sides.

Even though I KNOW that gathers don't provide as much support because they are looser by definition, I was still surprised that the gathers did not provide much support. Also I was not ultimately thrilled with the shape.

I guess I should have titled this one "neurodivergent sewing" because as you can see from the below pictures, I measured/draped, and then added several inches, because when I looked at the pattern from my measured/draped toile, I thought, "That is too small." Ahoy dysphoria!

I am very very fat, but apparently not as fat as I think I am, although this past week multiple doctors were grossed out by my fat body! Love the medical industry for me.

Anyway, this bra is made of pink cotton gauze so lightweight it is almost cheesecloth. This is a picture I took while putting together the third iteration of bust cups - I doubled the material and it is still transparent. It's so so so nice to sew, though - unlike when I was sewing with the beige muslin (or, if you look, you can see blue fabric with white and yellow flowers - that's a quilting cotton I was using for mockups) I didn't even need a thimble, even when I was making an eyelet through eight layers.

Here are my silly eyelets that are so so so big, threaded with a piece of string I made by sewing scraps together and then rolling them and then just whipstitching. Catch me making a tube that has to turn inside out! Never! My fingers simply cannot accomodate that kind of finesse.

Ultimately, v2 of the bra is not bad, but not what I want. But ok for wearing around the house! I guess I could mark it up and adjust it and make it tighter and more supportive but instead I moved on to iteration 3.

By the way: I know that you are “supposed to” sew in matching thread, BUT:

1. Thread matching neon pink cotton gauze is difficult and I don’t want to spend the money when I already have a spool of 5,000 yards of blue cotton thread;

2. It is MUCH easier to see what I’m doing when I can see the thread;

3. I knew this wasn’t going to be a final version, and I knew I wanted to upload it to tumblr, so I wanted to make sure YOU could see the thread. Look at my wonky stitches! Look at how nothing is the same size! And yet it is a garment that sticks together. I have had really bad tremors these past few weeks from weather related migraines, and also one of my medications, so my stitches will never be the tiny, neat stitches of a professional sewist, but that is OK by me.

Preview of iteration 3: the 3-piece bust cup.

To give you a sneak peek, here is the first version of this cup - three pieces. When I made it from the double-layered gauze, I then had to cut, like, viking style godets - 1 into the top of the inside and 1 into the top of the outside; then I had to match the top piece, so it got 3 godets. Exhausting. By the time I was done, my hand was trembling too much to take a picture. NEXT TIME.

(I KNOW I can buy underwires, but I don't WANT an underwire bra. If I wanted an underwire bra, I could just go to Lane Bryant and drop $80 on one that would be uncomfortable and I wouldn't be able to breathe. My ultimate goal here is to actually be able to make these "bras" with a longer torso so that I can wear them as shirts under cardigans when I have to go into the office.)

Anyway, I suspect part of the problem is the fabric I'm using. Loosely woven fabric just IS NOT IT for this kind of project. I know other folks have used linen, but I find that the linen I like against my skin is also too loosely woven; plus I am not here for things that cannot be thrown into the washer with all my other garments. I think a cotton sateen might feel nice but be too heavy. I don't want a fabric that is man-made ("man-made") like rayon, and I don't want something plastic like polyester. I also am on multiple medications that make me overheat, in addition to just being a person who is always hot in general, so while I feel like a wool suiting would actually be PERFECT for this, I could not bear it.

Coming soon to my mailbox is a selection of 21 yards of fabric in 8 different weights - yes, I'm getting a cotton sateen, but I'm also getting a voile (slightly heavier than gauze but still light!) and a poplin shirting (crisp! tightly woven!).

I am also getting two different cotton knits, because I like pain. I mean. I do like pain, but actually not the kind of pain that comes with hand-sewing a knit. But I want some tank tops and I really need a knit for that unless I want to go through The Pain Of Braless Boobs In A Garment With Darts.

In other news, Mariah Pattie made basically exactly what I want to make out of the Lengberg Castle bra pattern, but since she is, you know, like, a professional sewist, hers look amazing. Envy!

[cosplaytutorial]

Hello I would love to cosplay aqua from Kingdom Hearts, but I'm having trouble with the bra pads on her shirt. Everyone else either cuts up a bra or get a bra cup, cover it with their fabric of choice and stitch it on. I actually don't want it to be an actual bra cup but a design thats a part of the shirt. I want it to be just the fabric part of the bra. Now while i had a template for the shape, no matter how many times i cut it out, hem it or add darts, it just never comes out right. Thanks!

Hello there!

That’s a really weird design, even for Kingdom Hearts. Wow.

To me, it looks more like fabric pieces sewn on than actual foam bra cups, so I think you are on the right track, though I can see why molded foam cups would be much easier!

What I would do is use the saran wrap method of patterning. Wear the undergarments you are planning wearing with the costume and possibly even the top if you have it in a wearable state and the fabric isn’t going to get damaged by this method. Get Glad Press N’ Seal wrap. This has a light adhesive on one side, so it will stick to you and to itself, making your patterning much easier. (You can also use a layer of regular saran wrap with masking or duct tape over it, if you choose, but this is the method I use for unusual patterns.) Once you have a good few layers of plastic on, use a permanent marker to draw the shape that you want. I would recommend just wrapping your breast area and drawing on the triangle shape of the cup and at the very least a vertical princess seam, or a vertical seam ending at a horizontal seam (like a 3-piece bra cup), though with how low this sits on her breasts, you will likely only need the one seam if yours sits in the same place.

Carefully peel yourself out of the wrap, and cut the pieces along the seamlines you just drew. Flatten these as well as you can. Take the two sides and try to square them with each other the best you can so you have an even pattern. Make sure to add seam allowance. Sew these out of a test fabric as a mockup, and make any changes you should need before doing them for real. For reference, the pattern will roughly be shaped so that the princess seams are curved, with the pieces curving outward toward each other in the middle (the top of the piece will be smaller, and the outward curves towards the middle and bottom will allow for extra space in there once it is sewn). The degree and location of the curve will depend on your breast shape and size.

By doing it this way, you’ll end up with pieces that are shaped and sized to the specific shape and size of the breast, rather than a flat piece you are trying to fit over a rounded surface, or a flat piece you are trying to dart. The correct shape of the seamlines will be built into your pattern, rather than added later.

The tricky part here is that the top appears to be a stretch material, so I would also make the cups out of a stretch material. Even though they are seamed for shape, they still need to be able to stretch with the fabric underneath. If you use a non-stretch material, wear the top, pin the cups in place very well, and sew them with the top stretched so that it mimics how much it will be stretched when worn.Otherwise, you’ll end up with the top either being too small in that area (because it wasn’t stretched) or lumpy and rippled.

I hope that helps! If it doesn’t, let me know exactly what was going wrong with the previous versions and with this version and I can try to help troubleshoot.

—Fabrickind / Q&A Staff

[devilinthedetaildesigns]

The sewing-for-spite bodice continues apace - I realised that I had managed to put two of the bust cup pieces in upside down - which is ridiculous, because the pattern is so crap that there was no indication that they were upside down, it just made the underbust seam very flat and the bust line seam very eased.

So I remade the bust cups, and I'll put them in tomorrow and finish the whole thing off and we will never speak of it again.