Tag: bralette

Adjusting to life with a newborn, and working on a new pattern.

Amanda Wynn5 Comments

I’m excited to say I finally had my baby girl, a little more than three weeks ago now. Requisite retelling of the birth (feel free to skip): I spent a lot of time worried about preeclampsia and platelet counts, but that ended up being for nothing as that wasn’t a problem, though labor ended up being awful for other reasons (infection after my water broke, low blood pressure, fever, crappy anatomy) and I ended up having a c-section after 24 hours of labor because my poor baby wasn’t tolerating it and after five hours of pushing and a room full of nurses cheerleading at your junk, well, a c-section starts sounding pretty good. Poor kiddo had some scary complications after the stressful birth and ended up in the NICU for about five days, and I couldn’t even touch her for about two days, so that was an emotional nightmare, but I’m happy to say everything resolved and we’re all home now and  healthy and happy(ish – let’s be real, I have some emotional wobbliness while pregnant / after birth that check a lot of antenatal/postpartum depression boxes, but luckily I am able to caretake and enjoy the moments with my kids despite it).  Sleep deprived, of course, but content. The whole experience was identity-jarring, which has left me with an even more intense minimalism/decluttering urge for convoluted psychological reasons better left explored over coffee with a sister or bff, but eh. Despite my aspirations and birth plans and idealism and well-intentioned attempt at unmedicated labor (HAAAAAHHAHAHA. NOPE), birth is intense and sometimes horrible and sort of existentially traumatizing, at least for me, but I seem to have bad luck in that department. She’s wonderful, and worth it all, and her brother, too, who has been amazing adapting to everything, too. I’m so blessed in that.

Funny, though, that most of the women I know told me that you’ll know labor is imminent when you get a burst of energy and want to clean the house. That sensation is utterly unknown to me. I did get zoned in on working on a pattern for about 12 hours straight, though, which I’m still grading and testing, but hope to release very soon. The world is full of good bra patterns, especially in the boom of interest over the last 3 or so years, but it makes me feel better to work on something I enjoy and I feel much less isolated when I engage with the world via a craft I care immensely about. It’s helping me to really systematize my understanding of stretch reductions, cup sizing, grading different bra parts, and using Illustrator, so that feels like an accomplishment. Once I’m satisfied with the nuts and bolts of this one, I have quite a few ideas for less common, more vintage inspired pattern styles in the future. It’s a simple demi style bralette with slightly angled seam lines and an angled center front band, which works well with the lines of rectangular torsos like mine to imply a little curvaceousness, worked well with the belly I had when pregnant, and allows for a front of bra lace longline detail:

More to come as that comes into shape. 🙂

Achievement Unlocked: New Etsy Shop

Amanda Wynn2 Comments

I’m excited (and a bit jittery) to say that my Etsy lingerie shop is finally open. I’ve been setting it up for a few weeks and still have *so many things* I want to add to it, but it’s a start that I feel proud of. Also excited to say I’m testing sizing and writing up directions for a sewing pattern I hope to release soon. The crafter life goals of sewing for others and pattern drafting do work well together.

So far, no full cradle bras because I’m writing up my 95 theses of how to fit a bra. Not really 95, but a few pages for sure. I’ve been reading a lot on sizing standards and the history of different measurement practices and vanity sizing, and now I see why most of us are totally confused by manufacturer sizing. More on this later when I get my fitting guide all hammered out, but the issue of adding four or five inches to your underbust measurement really throws a wrench in everything. What’s even more frustrating is that just using your raw underbust measure seems like it would clear up everything, but then you have to grapple with figuring out which manufacturers add inches to the underbust measure for their bands and which don’t, and with how individual brands approach sizing, because a 36B in one brand might be another brand’s 32DD. (I intend to use the raw underbust measure, myself, though I’ve found the high bust to be a better place to measure – right under the armpits, over the bonier part of the upper chest, since the underbust measure can vary so dramatically with breathing, sitting vs. standing, bloating, etc. It tends to be slightly larger than the underbust measure by an inch or two, which works out perfectly for me with my broad back and unusual proportions, but may not for everyone.)

For now, I’ve focused on lacy bralettes, underwear and garter belts in the shop, and I’m still learning the ins and outs of SEO and writing copy and it’s been actually kind of amazing in researching all of that to realize how much snake oil marketing stuff floating around out there is promising starry-eyed budding entrepreneurial dreamer types like myself that a fortune is there for the taking if we just fork out 2k for whatever guru’s online course! Ugh, gross. (They tell me that if I don’t set up a mailing list, the howling abyss demon of failure and loneliness and bad skin will come for me, so if you’d like to join the mailing list, it’s (here), and I did set up a 10% off code that will be sent to your email, and I promise I won’t spam you. Especially not with false scarcity marketing or canned enthusiasm adspeak crap, because the world has more than enough of that.)

Learning photography is infinitely more fun, though I think I lost at least a week to cussing my camera controls and my cat for jumping in the shot when I finally got all the elastics to lie flat for two seconds. You can really see the eternal conflict between my antique feminine, Marie Antoinette delicate aesthetic and my Morticia Addams for life/what would Cersei wear sensibilities:

Under My Thumb bralette.
Tangled Up in Blue bralette.
Rapture bralette and ruched back underwear.
Heart of Glass bralette and underwear.
Just Like Honey bralette, garter belt, and underwear.
Nothing But Flowers bralette and underwear.
Going to California bralette and ruched back underwear.

And now I’m off to bed to listen to the rain. Mmm, gothic novel spring weather.

Amanda Wynn2 Comments

Happy almost 4th of July. We’re making a stay-cation of it, which means lots of sewing time. Lots of makes I’m proud of lately–larger bras sewn for my grandma, since being a 40E doesn’t afford her the luxury of choosing from all the lacey whispy nothings we 36b-ish-es have to peruse. I’m trying to stretch my abilities so that I can sew well for a wider range of sizes than just my own.

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satin covered foam cup, lace and tulle upper cup. lace + tulle cradle.
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strap detail.
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It looks a bit lumpy on my 36b dressform, and I had to stuff it to fill it out. this picture doesn’t quite do it justice, alas, but it gives an idea.

I’ve also been somewhat doggedly trying to work on my finishing methods like attaching fold over elastic. So convenient and shiny and pretty, and yet, such an enormous pain in the butt. The first few sets of underwear I made were a huge disappointment, since the waving of the elastic distorted the lines of the fabric and made my makes scream homemade. But I sewed about twelve pairs in a week and I think I’ve got it now. The tricks seem to be actually measuring elastic into quadrants and evenly distributing the reduction (I mark quadrants on the garment and FOE with pins, then match the pins as I go, so that the stretch is distributed evenly over the FOE) and sewing along the open edge of the FOE as accurately as possible. And also steaming/pressing when it’s all done to help pull the elastic back into shape and make it lie flat on curves (thanks to tailormadeblog.com/Ying of Tailor Made Shoppe for that tip!).

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early FOE + mesh struggles.
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and here is where it all started to really come together for me, in my brain and in the muscles of my hands. 🙂

I made these to match the bra above. The pink lace is one of my absolute favorites.

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And then finally there’s this, a bralette pattern I’m working on. It’s not a terribily original design; it’s a pretty commonly seen basic bralette style with a lot of coverage. Stylistically it’s not very different from Cloth Habit’s Watson pattern, and the cups have a very similar seaming arrangement. But there are definite differences in the cradle/wings; hers brings things to a definite V point in the center and that’s a challenge I don’t want to deal with if I can help it. I’m not sure but I think the underarm side might be higher on this because I am anti side boob escape-age, and for wider set breasts, the struggle is real. Most bralettes without a higher side band leave me feeling exposed and at the mercy of the elements/gravity/sudden movements. So far I’m pretty happy with it!

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I even dyed this fabric and strap elastic! stretch lace over mesh.
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first attempt at enclosing the band seams with the lining. it was tricky and slow going but maybe practice will help.
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outer view of the finished bra. I made this one in scuba, a thicker double knit (I think), which works great for balancing stretch with structure. Seems a perfect fabric for bra cups.

I’m making up some samples of lots of these pieces in a range of sizes to test the fit and refine my details these days. Slowly lurching ever closer to actually offering custom made lingerie… 🙂

Happy 4th!