My First Bra Draft

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have dived down the rabbit hole of drafting my own bra patterns.  While I really love my Harriet bras, after wearing them for awhile the wires start to poke me at the sides of my breasts and leave bruises.  I wondered why an otherwise well-fitting bra would do this, so I did a bit of research and began to learn about breast shape and the different underwires available to fit them.  Just as overall bodies come in various shapes and sizes, so do breasts.  This blog post from LilypaDesigns was really helpful in learning about shapes and distribution of fullness, and Emerald Erin's guide on underwire styles was very interesting.  I found I am wide set, with wide roots and bottom fullness.  While I could try out various patterns from other people and fiddle with the fit, my stubborn determination kicked in and I decided to just make the pattern myself.

Enter my new favorite book: Patternmaking for Underwear Design by Dr. Kristin Shin.  This book covers all sorts of lingerie design, not just bras.  It reads much like my patternmaking textbooks from college; the draft is shown in a standard size (34B) and it is up to you to implement your own measurements.  There is no handholding at all, so if you are unfamiliar with patternmaking it might be a challenge.  

It all begins with fitting the underwire.  Some blogs I read recommended ordering wires in different sizes and seeing which one worked best.  This seemed a bit willy nilly to me, and since I already have several sets of wires that were too narrow I didn't want any more.  I wondered if I actually needed a completely different style of wire.  Luckily, I read about making a breast root trace.  You can read about it here, just be warned that there are photos of a somewhat naked breast. I don't have a flexible ruler, so I used some jewelry-making wire doubled up.  In the photo below you can see my root trace compared with the size 38 underwire which seems to fit me perfectly.

Now that I had a well-fitting underwire, I began drafting my pattern.  I took various measurements indicated in the book and did my best to follow the diagrams.  The only thing that confused me was the angle between the cradle and band.  The directions were rather vague, and this ended up causing some fit issues with both the bras that I have made from this pattern.

And now, here is my first bra made from my self-drafted pattern.

Go ahead and snicker at my funny looking lace butterfly.  I had little bits of this lace leftover from a Harriet bra, but I ended up making the wings too small.  Oh well.  The outer cup and frame fabric is duoplex.

There are actually no underwires in this bra, because they didn't fit into the casing!  Somehow Dr. Shin forgot to accommodate for wire play, and there simply wasn't enough room to jam in the wires without them sticking out from the top of the bridge.  

My dress form isn't quite as big as I am, so the bra isn't quite filled out.  

When I first started making bras I wondered what sort of finishing bra-makers did, so I like to share the guts of my bras so others can see.  I line my bra cups with 15D tricot.  As you can see, I was struggling with my feed dogs while sewing the elastics.  My sewing machine is pretty new, and we are still getting acquainted.  

So what did I change?  Most importantly, adding in some wire play.  That means raising up the top of the cradle/band seam 1/2" so the wire have room to move a bit and won't jam into my sides. I need more coverage in that area anyway, thanks to what I lovingly call my armpit fat.

Remember how I said the instructions were a bit vague on the angle of the cradle/band seam?  Well apparently I didn't make it angle down enough, and ended up with fabric bunching up on the sides. To fix this, I have angled the band down more at the top, adding about 3/8" at the top of the cradle down to 0 at the bottom.

Also, I'm not a fan of sewing the O-rings at the top of the cup.  I appreciate that it makes the straps easy to adjust, but all those layers usually make me break a needle.  I'm trying out a different strap attachment next time.

Have you tried to draft your own bra?  Was it a successful fit? What resources were helpful?