I've been scouring the internet for information about replacing broken underwires in store bought bras, but I haven't found much aside from the FAQ about underwires and bra manufacture by Babs Woods that brought me here. I plan on ordering replacement underwires from Sew Sassy, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to remove the broken underwires. In theory, it seems as though it would be simple to just yank them out, but I can't seem to manage it. I know that the wires aren't sewed down or glued in because they twist and occasionally shove their way out of the channelling and into my armpit. Should I cut a small slit in the channeling? Would it be better to cut this slit by the armpit end of the underwire or by the end of the underwire at the center of my chest? And lastly, what exactly should I use to cut the channeling? Scissors definitely do not work and I almost ruined a bra beyond repair by using them. An exacto knife? Or something else that I haven't thought of? And even if I do manage to exacto the channeling open, I'm not sure if I can yank the entire wire out in the cups where it's broken. Are there some kind of . . . tiny little pliers that I could buy and use? Should I just cut multiple slits in the channeling? After I insert the new underwire, I'll probably just superglue the slits shut, since that's what I do to the channeling when the underwire ends poke through into my armpit and it seems to work decently, but is there a better method I could use to close the slits?
Thanks for any help, especially from people who have tried this before.
A seam ripper is good for cutting little slits -- that how I usually open buttonholes.
When I want to repair a slit, I usually use baseball stitch, also known as "antique seam". But I haven't even *seen* a store-bought bra in years, so I don't know whether that darn would be suitable for your boning channel.
If you really think it's worth trying to repair, you could do as you propose, and sew a small patch of something soft over the ends of the casing in addition.
If the wire is sticking in the channel, then that usually means that the dip they put on the ends has gone sticky, and it's time to replace the whole thing.
I find that bras are not usually worth fixing like this. By the time the wire is dead, so too is the rest of the bra. Charnos (bra manufacturer here in the UK) told me once that I could expect a maximum of six month's wear out of a bra, and less if it was machine washed or a larger than 36DD size (I took a 38F at that time) because of the stresses of wearing it. This was especially true if the bra was being worn two or more days per week... Mine usually last a bit longer than that (worn one a week and washed on a very cool delicates program in non-bio washing powder). They expected their Bioform bra, which was designed to be machine washed, to last longer. Unfortunately they no longer make it (I think that despite the comfort levels, women found it to clunky and heavy in use - rather like plate armour!), and the thickness of the armature was too much for smaller women. I know I found mine extraordinarily uncomfortable when I started losing weight.
The usual first point of failure in a wired bra is exactly the point you are proposing to slit the casing: at the end of the wire. I frequently darn a hole that the ends of wires make at this point and get an extra month or so of wear out of the bra, but I know when it goes here that the writing is on the wall...
I don't doubt you at all, but faced with the choice of having to drop more than 200USD to replace all my bras at one time (since the underwires all managed to either snap or start sliding out of the channels within three months of one another) or spending 25USD on supplies and a weekend of cursing at myself to patch them all up for a bit while I gradually buy one new bra every few months, there's really no contest. I don't have the skill to make my own bras, much less the supplies or tools here at university.
I understand exactly! You buy the buggers all at once, and then they have the cheek to wear out all together! When I was a 38F, I'd loved to have paid as little as $25 a bra! Mine were between £25 and £38. Ouch! Now I'm down to a 32 DD things are a little easier, in that I can find them a little more easily and they are usually somewhat cheaper! Last time I went bra shopping I found FOUR in Marks & Spencers for various prices, for a *total* of £38! :) :) :)
Now, for the future, when you have a little spare cash and are closer to a sewing machine (worth picking up a nice pre-loved one for this - the one I got as a student is still stitching perfectly 30+ years later! Here it is:
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there's a lady in Australia who will take a well loved bra that fitted you comfortably and gave good support when new and make you a pattern from it. The service isn't cheap, but if you are stable in size, it's worth it. There are LOTS of on-line places you can get good bra making supplies from, and there are several ladies here who make their own and can walk you through the process. If you aren't too unusual a size, there are also several pattern companies that make bra patterns that are reputed to be quite good. As a student I didn't have the option of making my own (nothing available 30 years ago in the north of England), so I spent what money I had for clothes on good bras and shoes (I'm also an awkward fit in the shoe department), and made everything else I possibly could, from coats via posh frocks to spray decks for kayaks.
It's best to cut the channeling at the center front. It's less likely to poke it's way out again. Every RTW bra is different, but look at the top edge of the channeling at the center front. You might see stitches that close up the end. The channeling is just a tube with an opening at the center front and at the arm pit. Unpick the stitches with a seam ripper and push the underwire out the opening. It might take some wiggling, but you should be able to get both halves out this way. Slide in the new underwires and hand stitch the end closed. If you don't see the stitching it might be under the elastic. You can either unstitch the elastic for a bit at the center front and restitch it after the underwires are in or just cut a slit in the channel as close to the elastic as possible. Use a seam ripper to make the cut. Be sure to only cut the top layer of the channel. Put a small non-raveling fabric over the slit and stitch around by hand to close up the opening.
Look closely at the fit of your bras. The underwire should sit flat against your rib cage all the way around including at the center front. If they don't, the gap might be causing undue bending and that's why they break. There used to be a very good site for large cup bras that described how a bra should fit, but unfortunatly it's gone. I'm sure there is another one on a retail site somewhere. Definitly make sure your bras fit well, they will last much longer if the underwires and any boning is bending and elastic isn't overly stretched.
I'd like to make my own bras, but everything I have found on how expects wires and elastic and not having huge tracts of land. I'm developing a latex and rubber allergy, on top of all of my other allergies, so I'm rather keen to learn to make my own. I have never found a comfortable wired bra, and tend to go for sports bras- so far lycra is still okay. If I wear them inside out, I don't usually get elastic on my flesh, and that helps reduce rashes. I'm about a 38 F. I like my Elizabethan corset (which I did make myself), but that's not conducive to modern silhouettes.
Anne of needlenook fabric offers latex free elastic and bra kits with everything you need. I can't seem to find her web site at the moment, but her address is snipped-for-privacy@aol.com . I don't think she has traditional online ordering, but will mail order. I just took a bra making class with her recently.
I just read in the Lee-Ann Burgess book on making bras that if an under wire breaks at the center, it is too narrow and it is flexing at that point each time you wear it since the band elastic is pulling it to fit your breast, which eventually leads to breaking at that point. If your underwires are breaking at the center front you might want to consider a wider underwire. That's side to side across your body.
This comment sent me to my pattern stash: according to the notes on my bra pattern, my newest bra was made in August 2005. I recall wearing my oldest woven-fabric bra in 2004 -- noticed a few days ago that the edge of the neck is starting to fray, but that's because the neck hole is too small, so I can cut the edge-finish off and put on a new bias facing. And I not only machine-wash my bras, I run them through with all the other light-colored things without any special attention.
I do have nine bras, and I save the newest one for Sunday, but that started me marinating a post on how home-made bras are more durable than factory bras, but Thanksgiving intervened.
Then during the after-thanksgiving shopping trip, my sister happened to mention that all her bras were several years old. She gets them from a store, she's built just like me, but even fatter, and I took a
38F the last time I bought one.
So I conclude that a bra that lasts only six months is a pretty poor bra -- and saying that the larger sizes don't hold up as well constitutes a confession of poor engineering.
But we already knew that RTW makers give short shrift to large women.
It's all women rather than only the larger breasted... But it isn't all the manufacturers fault. Most women seem to like their undies 'pretty'
- made of lace and such. The fabrics are NOT as strong as the plainer sort, and don't stand up to the washing as well. I seem to get caught all ways: small band (32) and larger cup (down to a DD, but that's bad enough!), and want them PLAIN! But underwired! And not to deep at the centre front, and I'm only 5'3"!
MOST women here in the UK do machine wash their bras, and make them last longer than the six months recommended, but you do have to take into account that after that time the fabrics, wire, and elastic are all suffering from a certain degree of fatigue even where there is no visible wear.
One day I may have the time to make my own, but at the moment, while I can still get them (and I too stock up when I find a batch that fit!) and possibly still changing sizes, it isn't cost effecticve when I include my time. It took less than half an hour and the last four added up to £38. It would take me longer than the two hours that money represents in my time for fairly simple sewing.
I've never dried bras in the clothes furnace, just wash them in the machine. I occasionally lose an older one to the clothes mangling monster, but it's worth the risk!
Did you know that the thing that washing machine engineers sort out most is bra wires in the pump, closely followed by coins and Lego... At least I can clear the pump myself! ;)
I didn't know that. I just got the new Bosch set of laundry machines and I can barely figure out how to run the things. There is a big different between top loading mechanical machines and front loading electronic ones. I hope we can learn to get along!
When we moved I found the large buckets of Legos. DS is graduating from the police academy in a bit over a month. Seems a lifetime since Legos were being stepped on and in the machine around here. Maybe gradkids some day or I should really borrow the grand nephews! Taria
A prime example of "milage varies" -- it's including my time that forces me to make bras. Going to a department store costs me one entire day, and I had to go to many, many stores before finding the correct size. And then they never had more than one or two, so I couldn't stock up.
After going to a store and trying on every variety without a wire in my size, I have serious need of chocolate medication or anyone coming near will suffer my temper.
For comfort alone, it's worth my time. Rashes aren't fun. I'll figure out a way to swing that book, as that looks to be comprehensive enough for what I need. I don't care about "pretty"- particularly since most lace itches. Maybe I can do decorative stitching if I can make something I like. I may resort to making panties too if I can't find the line I like that has fabric covering the elastic bands, and I'm wearing out the current collection.
I've no patience at all with instructions that assume that I'm desperate to produce an exact duplicate of something I could buy at J.C. Penney!
Pity I don't have a example of my grandmother's breast binder. In essence, she pinned a piece of sugar sack around herself (a softer and tougher fabric than up-to-date spinning mills can produce), and added shoulder straps and darts. The edges were faced in front to stand up to the pins.
My bra pattern calls for elastic, but the elastic is wrapped in linen
-- and I presume that one can buy lycra elastic -- so I'll describe it.
It happened, when I gave up hunting for bras, that I had a pattern for a T-shirt with a bust dart.
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, bottom picture.) Noting the resemblance between a sports bra and an abbreviated T-shirt, I put on the T-shirt and pinched it up to see how much ease I wanted to take out of the pattern, and stuck safety pins into it to show how much I wanted to cut off the bottom.
Because of the dart, I could cut the pattern straight at the bottom. (Store-bought sports bras, lacking a dart, have a very curved front hem.) This straight line simplifies design and construction considerably.
I added an allowance for a casing, intending to put in two or three channels of quarter-inch elastic, but when it came time to put it in, I didn't have any, so I applique'd waistband elastic (the kind used for boxer shorts) to the bottom and folded it up inside a hem. (I mean to revert to multiple channels of free elastic the next time I make a bra, but since I have nine good bras at the present time, and there are a lot of projects I actually need, it may be a while before I report on how my original idea worked out.)
By pure chance, I selected a left-over jersey with exactly the same stretch as the jersey the shirt was made of to test the pattern, and got a perfect fit the first time.
Much encouraged, I made up the pattern in a good cotton interlock -- and got a bra that was *much* too big. So I took out a great deal of ease -- pinching the loose bra enabled me to get it right the first time -- and started enlarging the neck and arm holes. By the time I had four good bras, I'd run out of that batch of interlock.
I suspected that if I bought more interlock, I'd have to re-fit the pattern again, so I went back to the original pattern and cut it on the bias of linen-cotton shirting. This was easier to make -- the front didn't need to be underlined -- it fit well, and it supported better than the interlock bras, but it was very uncomfortable at the armholes. The original bra pattern still had the T-shirt arm and neck holes, and a linen edge faced with bias tape is much harder than a cotton-knit edge turned once and zig-zagged.
So I started paring at the neck and armholes.
Cutting on the bias is extravagant of fabric, and I felt ready for pure linen. It happened that I had a sarong I'd hastily made of a very good but mis-printed linen I'd bought for a dollar a yard. The proportions of the sarong were wrong -- and the event for which I'd needed a sarong was over -- so I pieced the sarong into bias yardage by the technique I use for making bias tape. I quickly learned that I should first have marked bias lines all over it; as garment after garment was removed from the yardage, it became progressively harder to cut with the grain. (I was developing a woven-fabric briefs pattern at the same time, just to prove that I could, so I cut into the bias linen six times, and each time the fabric was folded differently to avoid putting the seams in awkward places.)
The third linen bra was comfortable at the arm holes and didn't show at the neck, so I retrofitted the earlier bras by cutting the holes bigger.
So now I've got a fully-tweaked pattern -- and so many bras that I may never have an excuse to buy real handkerchief linen. (There's at least one more bra to be made from the so-called handkerchief linen I made the ninth bra from.)
I have nothing to add to the original discussion, but thought I'd point out that Anne St. Clair, who teaches a lot of bra making classes, has a new book, and is hosting this week on TheCreativeMachine at Quiltropolis. If you want to join in, go to
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register.
Might be a good chance to get some specific bra making questions answered.
NAYY to both Anne and Quiltropolis, except I've bought nice fabrics from Anne and have been on Quiltropolis groups for a lot of years.
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