To go with my pale purple shorts - and still riding the high of making a nice bralette - I decided to make a bandeau/bralette out of the same purple cotton.
Some time ago, I bought this 1920s bandeau bra pattern from The Underpinnings Museum. Because they take their patterns from original garments, it's a one-size pattern. The band size of the original fit me, but the cup size was too big so I knew I would have some fitting and adjusting to do before I could actually make the thing.
I transferred the digital pattern to paper in a roundabout way - the pattern files are on A4 (I think) paper so I couldn't print it, and the scale square was in centimeters but my paper was gridded in inches. So... yeah. I opened the pattern pdf in a design program and put a 1" grid on it, making sure that each square was a bit bigger than the 2.5cm scale on the page, then used it like any other gridded pattern.
Fitting & Adjustments
With the pattern sized up, I cut out the pieces from my purple cotton. Obviously I wouldn't normally use the fashion fabric for a mockup, but I have at least two yards of this stuff still, so I didn't really care.
I pinned it together to try it on, which was dangerous, but I survived. Then I pinched, pinned, and marked the excess fabric to make it fit me in the way I wanted it to.
Once that was done I was able to take it apart, even up my alterations, and trace a new pattern. It already looked a lot different than my starting pattern, and not in the ways I was expecting.
I had expected the cutout for the insets to get smaller and the upper part of the 'cup' to also get... smaller, somehow. The upper part did get smaller, but the cutout got wider!
I suppose that makes sense if you think of it like swinging darts around - taking space out of one area and putting it in another. The lower bust inset also got smaller, which keeps it from being too big in the area where the excess went.
The bust got a bit more pointy because I made the inset narrower, but not much shallower. It's not overly pointy, though, and I was already getting a bit frustrated so I didn't try to fix it.
I gave my new pattern half-inch seam allowances at the back, center front, and inset seams. The bralette would have the upper and lower edges bound, so no seam allowances were necessary.
Now I had to wrestle with grainlines. The original pattern had the grainline running parallel to the center front seam, so I did the same with my new pattern.
Unfortunately, that was the wrong choice, as I discovered when I made my next mockup. The shape of the bandeau had changed so drastically from the original pattern that putting the center front on the grain put the top of the bra 'cup' almost directly on the cross-grain, giving it no stretch or ease. I know the 20's had a flat-chested look, but this just did NOT fit.
On sewing that mockup, I also realized that a half-inch seam allowance on such an intensely curved seam was too much to sew smoothly - I ended up with a lot of wrinkling and catching between the main piece and the insets. Those seams were cut down to a quarter-inch. I also narrowed the inset slightly again and moved the part of the body where the strap attached a bit.
So I made those minor alterations to my new pattern and cut it out again, this time making sure the top of the 'cup' was cut on the bias. Then I sewed it up again and it fit great!
Finishing
Feeling terribly pleased with myself, I started finishing the seams. The center front was flat felled to one side, in the hopes of fortifying the front seam. I top-stitched the other side of the seam to match. I flat felled the bust seams, too, folding the seams up toward the main piece of the bandeau and carefully stitching them down.
Then I figured I'd better think about elastics and closures. I was intending to attach a V-shape of 1" elastic on each end, with a G-hook as a closure, as you see in this 40s bra. Unfortunately, I only had one G-hook and it was already designated for another project (a modern version of this bralette).
Rather than order another one and wait for it to ship, I decided to alter the bandeau dramatically into more of a bralette. I pinned one end of the elastic to where I wanted it to attach on one side and marked that same point on the other side. Then I put the bra 'on' and wrapped the elastic around to see how much elastic I would need for it to fit snugly. I pinned that end to where I had marked on the bra band and made sure I could (every so carefully, with the pins still in) get it on and off okay.
Once I was sure I could get the bra on and off, I sloped the 'top' of the bra down to where the elastic would be attached. I then folded the elastic and fabric in on each other to hide the raw ends of both and did three lines of vertical stitching to hold the elastic in place.
Finally, I could bind the edges. I cut a strip on the straight grain to serve as the bra band, folded the long edges in, sandwiched it around the lower edge of the bra, and sewed it on in one fell swoop. I folded it over the edges of the elastic, so I made sure to give it a good backstitch on each end. I top-stitched the lower edge of the band too because I thought it would look nice.
The upper edge got a simple quarter-inch bias binding which was also attached in the lazy/all-at-once way. I made sure to sew slowly so my stitching was mostly even and there were barely any ripples.
I didn't have enough elastic for the straps, so I just took more of the bias tape I used for the top edge and top stitched it on each long side. I attached one end of the strap to the front, then pulled it around to the back and pinned the strap to the elastic band. I made sure that the length of the straps and the point where I was attaching them were even, and then I sewed them on.
Final Thoughts
The bra was done! It's obviously very different from the original, but I like it just the same! I'm proud of how well I got it to fit, it's very comfortable, and I can't wait to make a nicer version out of some burnout velvet I picked up a month or two ago.
There was one small issue I didn't discover until I was done. Because I removed so much of the bra band, there is no... containment in the armpit area, so it ends up not being quite so secure or supportive. It's not a huge issue, though. It still fits and it's still comfy, so I'll take what I can get.
My next sewing project is one of my two "big" goals for this year - Edwardian combinations!
Until then
Stay warm. Stay safe. Stay healthy.
Comments