bra making, cotton

This is a fit issue. The wire should lay flat against your body.

Also a fit issue. The support comes from the underwires and band, if present. All the shoulder straps should do is hold the bra in place.

Yes, but they're hard to find mass market and they're generally not cheap. Check figleaves.com, bravissimo.com, barenecessities.com, and frish.com.

Because the cup size is too small.

An old-fashioned bra store. Look in your local yellow pages for lingerie or for mastectomy supplies.

Nordstrom's bra department usually has okay fitters too but they wouldn't be my first choice.

-Sara, once again delurking and letting the real sewers answer the sewing stuff

Oh my goodness Kitty. There are so many people who feel for your predicament. Clearly you have not been properly fitted for a good bra. My biggest concern is that those underwires are doing craaaazy things on you. I had a related problem with the proportions of my rib cage width and depth in relation to underwire bra sizes. Suffice it to say that regardless of measurements, I determined my bra size by putting on lots of bras and ignoring whether or not the band fit. I had to take the fitters recommendations as a starting point and keep going until I was comfortable. Lo and behold, I now buy my bras a band size bigger because the cups and wires fit great, and then shorten the bands at the back.

Finding an underwire cup that contains your breast tissue with the underwire flush against your skin is the first priority. From your description of having a narrow front, your band measurement may not fit into current templates for proportions. For example, the wires and cups of a 36B might fit your chest perfectly, but you might need an extra 4 inches in the band to be able to fasten it. That's okay! Bra back extenders are available at many fabric stores, and moving the straps in back is trivial, for you or a seamstress to do. This will probably address the problem of straps slipping off, too.

I hope I'm not rushing to conclusions here. But girl, let's get you a better fitting bra!

Pora

G'day Kitty

If you click on the recommended url in the other post you will find lots of information to read about fit, fabrics, elastics,etc etc. I just tried to read it but the floral background is so hard to read, but it seems like the info is good, specially this page.

noticed there is a question link, so you might like to pose the questions there, athough I feel Sara has given good info. Bronwyn ;-)

Kitty > hey all, I have a couple questions. and problems I want to run by

I didn't realise how comfortable a well fitted bra can be until last year! It's amazing that I have gone so many years wearing ill fitting bras - some thing I have in common with about 60% of the Australian population.

I sheer frustration when trying on bras I decided that enough was enough and asked for help from one of the fitters - this was on a Sunday afternoon, in the sales and with my then 7 yo daughter who was using the fitting room stool as the basis for her gymnastics practice. Not exactly ideal conditions..... The fitter was excellent, asked styles I was interested in and I tried on lots before I found what fitted. I also learnt that some of the synthetic fabrics are very good in our hot humid summer so I don't have to wear cotton only. Now I can walk into that shop and see what's new in my size in the brand I like and that fits and know I will go home with a bra that fits.

Persevere - the right bra is there for you - you just haven't found it yet!

Just a hint on reading pages like this with busy backgrounds. Sometimes you can "select all" and then use the "Copy" choice in Edit, but in this case that does not work. You can simply run your mouse over the text so that it is highlighted, though; this does work on this site, and makes it a lot easier to read.

Many website makers can't resist the temptation to make their sites so busy.

Karen Maslowski > G'day Kitty

Thanks for all the input. I forgot to add I am an hour and a half from a major city (Somerset is a large farming town, we didn't even have a health food store til last year, and we have one sewing center which only sells stuff for heirloom sewing and maybe a bit of quilting cotton.

Besides the logistics I have two boys under two in my full time care and no babysitter available. so they go everywhere with me.

What is interesting is that everyone is saying this is a fitting issue and I am so happy to hear your suggestions. I think I will try on some smaller bras with bigger cups and see if they do fit. maybe I can alter them if they do. thanks everyone. Kitty

Two suggestions:

1. Try to find a store that specializes in fitting bras for women who have had mastectomies. They will fit any woman, regardless of health issues.
2. You can buy (better yet, MAKE!) a strap thing that attaches to bras straps in back. This goes horizontally across the back, so it forms the letter H with the bra straps. The commercial ones are a narrow (.50") length of soft elastic, are adjustable, and have those S hooks to attach. (The 'hardware' is fine plastic, and is made similar to the 'hardware' on bras. This strap will not only secure the straps from slipping, they will also offer a bit more support to the chest. Clear as mud? PAT in VA/USA

Yeah, I looked up bra stores and department stores in your area and realized it must be fairly rural. In your situation, for mere fitting purposes, you can go to J.C. Penney. Around here they have a good variety of bras for the price. There's something to be said for being able to buy an inexpensive bra or two just to test drive for a few weeks. With bra back extenders and even the strap holder (which I use too) maybe you can have some success with fit and comfort. Then you can decide if you want to proceed with something like ordering from the internet. By the way, you might like to try a style with a Y back / racerback. Those address the issue of strap slippage.

Pora

G'day Karen

That's what I usually do but as you've mentioned it didn't work in this case.

Thanks anyway Br> Just a hint on reading pages like this with busy backgrounds. Sometimes

I am have been told that eighteenth-century stays were worn over a shift, and never cleaned -- just aired out as often as possible. It's possible that corsets were worn over chemises, and kept clean rather than being frequently washed.

The re-enactors I eavesdrop on are unanimous in saying that nothing but linen will do for stays worn in warm weather, and my experience with cotton bras and linen bras bears that out. (I rather imagine that hemp, ramie, nettlecloth, and other bast fibers would do.)

In summer I wear pull-over bras resembling abbreviated T-shirts; I designed it by putting on a T-shirt I'd made and pinching it up to see how much ease to take out of the pattern. Then I discovered that it was only by good luck that the cheap fabric for my beta bra had the same stretch as the fabric of the T-shirt! Took a lot of tweaking to get a pattern that fits properly in the stretchier fabric -- and then I went back to the original pattern to design a linen-cut-on-the-bias bra that supports better, and is cooler -- but needs to be changed at noon on warm days. (But by the time I'd done all the tweaking I had enough bras that frequent changes are not a problem.)

Joy Beeson

this works: Edit Sellect all, Edit Copy open Word Paste ready, readible

Suzan from Amsterdam

Suzan, that usually does work, but it didn't with this site, as they used frames or something as placeholders for the text. All you can see are blocks of color.

Karen Maslowski > this works:

Joy wrote: and then I went back to the original pattern to design a linen-cut-on-the-bias bra that supports better, and is cooler -- but needs to be changed at noon on warm days. (But by the time I'd done all the tweaking I had enough bras that frequent changes are not a problem.)

Hi Joy. thanks for this post. tell me more about the linen bras.

where did you find the pattern? are you using an elan or something professional?

I'd Love to make some, so Please tell all. or if you don't want to post to a public forum then email me. THanks, Kitty

Oh, did you decide to give up on ready-to-wear? Of course it's great to make your own. I am just so curious to find out what the answer is to your underwire/fitting problem! Just call me nosy...

Pora

What's an elan?

I think the pattern started as the bodice of a Friends Patterns dress. I'd been making pull-over blouses from it for some time when I bought a quantity of nice cotton jersey, so I took some ease out of the pattern and tightened up the neck hole, which involved making several T-shirts of a rather garish and cheap jersey I bought to make pajamas. (And, in fact, I tend to pack one of those T-shirts when I go somewhere overnight.) The first neck hole stretched *way* out, so later on (when I'd gotten accustomed to wearing T-shirts around the house) I took out the hem and eased the shirt onto a wide binding, which made a quite-wearable shirt -- except for having red, yellow, and green stars and moons all over it.

Sometime after perfecting the T-shirt pattern and making the shirt at

(I posted this aspart of a discussion some time or another, and have never had a reasonto take it down) I got *really* fed up with my RTW bras & decided thatmaking one would be easier than hunting down my size. So I put onthe T-shirt in the picture, pinched it up to see how tight to make it,and stuck pins in to show how long to make it. I made a trial in the aforementioned garish cotton jersey (which is*printed* black, which makes it rather like synthetic fabric to wear,but it's comfortable enough in cold weather) And lo and behold, itfit right off the bat! In fact, I slept in it that night. (I'dslipped on the ice while wearing it, and after my spouse fell asleep,I discovered that I'd stiffened up so much that I couldn't undresswithout help -- so I was very, very glad that I wasn't wearing a J.C.Penney bra!)

I was desperate for bras by then, so I made another (which I'm still wearing one day a week during the winter) without changing the pattern any except to line the front and allow twice as much width for the hem. I applique` waistband elastic to the lower edge, then turn it twice so the elastic is completely covered.

Then I decided it was time to make one out of nice fabric, so I enlarged the neck and arm holes and cut one from red interlock.

Interlock, it seems, has a lot more give than jersey. This came out as a rather loose sleeveless blouse. So I did the pinch-up bit again, and made another red bra -- this time I restored the original neck hole, and put a neckband in it, thinking that if the bra insisted on showing through the neck holes of my T-shirts, I'd make one that was

*supposed* to show.

The fit was perfect this time, but the neckband idea was a dismal failure. (My 32Gs stretch it out of shape.) I was also out of the red interlock, but I had some blue interlock that (Tadah!) had the same stretch. So I cut the neck hole way big and made a blue bra. Perfect fit, but I could wear it only under my winter shirts, as the low necks on the summer shirts showed the straps. So I pared the neck hole and arm holes some more, made another blue bra -- perfect, so I made two more, and then I was out of the blue interlock. But I also had seven bras, and I was accustomed to thinking of having three at the same time as luxury, so there matters stood.

A considerable time later, for some reason I thought I'd like to see whether my bra could be made up in woven fabric cut on the bias, so I tried it in some dollar-a-yard cotton-linen shirting I bought to test patterns with. (And it's time to test some more patterns because I've worn out all my gardening shirts!)

I used the original pattern -- the one I made the garish black bra from -- but faced the arm and neck holes with bias tape instead of turning them under and zig-zagging over the raw edges. I also flat-felled all seams instead of pressing them open and zig-zagging the raw edges. And I didn't make the front double. (In the interlock bras, I turned the dart in the lining up and the dart in the outer shell down, to minimize bulk, but otherwise treated it like an underlining. Oh, yes, there was no seam allowance on the lining; the pressed-open seams and the hems covered the raw edges.)

Excellent fit, but the armholes irritated my skin, and the neck showed through *winter* blouses. I cut the holes bigger and made three bras from a long piece of excellent linen that Phoenix (fabric.com) cleared out at a dollar a yard because it had been printed crooked. (I still have quite a lot of it: I knew when I bought it that I'd never again see real linen at a dollar a yard.)

I pared the holes more after each of the first two bras. The third was just right, so I made a bra out of a scrap of handkerchief linen (a triangle scarf leaves a very large scrap!), then took the bias off the earlier bras and retrofitted them. On the handkerchief-linen bra, I pressed the shoulder seam open and applique'd a wide strip of bias over it instead of flat-felling, which made a nicer finish. The ends of the bias are pointed, cut along the threads of the fabric.

The handkerchief linen bra is much more comfortable than the coarser bras, and there's enough of the scrap to make one or two more -- but I don't want any more lime-green bras (the triangle scarf was to be worn for *visibility*). So I've been eyeing Wm. Booth, Draper's second-best handkerchief linen (or is it his third best? one doesn't want the linen to be *too* fine) -- but I can just barely get all my bras into the drawer now and I'm completely out of middling slacks -- when I don't want to wear shabby, patched slacks I have to wear my best linen-cotton damask slacks -- so it's going to be a while before I order any linen. (But I have two pairs of eight-pocket broadfalls cut out and some stitches in, and a deadline of about three weeks.)

One thing I learned: if you piece bias yardage to use for several small projects, it is essential to baste true-bias lines all over the fabric while it is still flat; the grain on the second and third bras was kinder by guess and by golly. I didn't have this problem with the handkerchief linen because taking a triangle scarf off one corner leaves it cut bias, so I needed only to lay out the pattern. This plan also eliminates piecing seams, but it's rather extravagant unless you happen to want a triangle scarf.

Do I need to say to cut all the bias tape you think you will need before you lay out the pattern? The wide bias for lining the shoulder straps came from a scrap, though, since I wanted only two short pieces. (Not to mention that I thought of it after cutting out.)

Joy Beeson

Thanks Joy. I appreciate all the work that went into that post. I'll have to get to work.

in reply to all, yes, I am pretty much house bound with two baby boys in tow 24 seven and I have realized that the one thing I deserve is to have clothing that isn't adding to my stress.

Not to mention that my kiddies deserve to have a grandma who isn't yelling because she is miserable. If I can make undergarments which are cooling and comfortable as well as supportive so I am not suffering from a back ache, I should take the time and do the work.

well, back to work, thanks everyone, especially Joy. Kitty

Nosy. ;) Just kidding! I remain very interested too although I have too many other things to sew before I can even think about making bras again.

Phae