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Completed: Cherry Print Knit Boylston Bra

What’s up everyone! I’m bringing it back a little old school today with a lingerie project – yes! I haven’t shared one of these in ages, since I feel like they can get a little redundant to talk about (I mean for me specifically, as the writer. How many times can you discuss the same pattern repeatedly before you get bored as hell? Yeahhh I’m not doing that!). But this project in particular is a little different and I think warrants its own blog discussion. So here we are!

Also, side note – I’m in the airport lounge as I write this and despite trying to find a sneaky little place where no one could see behind me, I think I failed and undoubtedly there is someone who is watching me upload photos of my underwear to the internet. So, there’s that too.

Anyway, about the bra in question! This is the Boylston pattern from Orange Lingerie. I’ve made this pattern a few times in the past, but it has admittedly been a minute since I whipped one up. My cup size has changed in the past couple of years, and while I wasn’t entirely sure what the new size was, I knew it wasn’t whatever I had been previously sewing. This is a balconette-style pattern, but it was, um, VERY balconette on me haha. I know one of the biggest hesitations that people have with starting to sew lingerie is the understanding that your first project(s) may not fit! And while I totally believe that it’s not an absolute waste if you were able to learn from the process, it still really sucks to make something that doesn’t fit the way you intended! This is where I stood with Boylston (and honestly, most bra patterns) until I finally sucked it up and just tried out a cup size bigger to see what would happen. And guess what?? EVERYTHING WAS FINE.

So that’s where this bra comes into play! I made the size 30DD, which is exactly the right amount of cup coverage (finally!). For fabric, this bra is made with… wait for it… jersey knit! Yes! Ever since this pattern was released, I have been DYING to try it in a jersey, which I believe was originally suggested by Norma in the big reveal. Since this pattern relies on foam cups, you can use pretty much any fabric as that area is already stabilized. I fell in love with the idea, but honestly, it took me almost this long to find a fabric that I felt deserved to be made into a bra.

My jersey knit is from Mood Fabrics and it was one of those last-minute purchases that grabbed my attention when I was filling up my cart and I just couldn’t say no. Y’all know I love a good cherry print – however, I don’t wear light blue. But it was on saleeee and it was cherriessss and I just… well it arrived at my house and I had to do something with it. This print was a great contender for turning into a bra as it is reasonably stable (not super flimsy and lightweight, like the knits I like to wear as garments) and the print is small so it’s not totally cut up by the pattern pieces. This specific fabric is unfortunately sold out, but Mood Fabrics has tons of other fun prints available on their website. The Cotton Jersey Prints specifically is the line that I pulled this one from, FYI!

After I pre-washed my fabric, I cut a small yardage off and block fused the entire thing with lightweight fusible weft interfacing. I wanted the knit fabric to be stable so that it would be easy to handle, and also work for a bra pattern (this pattern does not call for stretch fabrics, except at the very back band, so you want to stabilize your fabric in order for the garment to fit properly). Once the fabric was fused, I then cut all my pieces except for the back band (which, again, needs to remain stretchy). I also cut the cups out of foam, the bridge and frame pieces with sheer cup lining, and the back band pieces with medium weight powermesh. I like my bras to be lined (hence the sheer cup lining) and the powermesh was needed to keep the uninterfaced knit back pieces from stretching out over time.

Once all that was cut, this project sat in a WIP box for about a month. Ha! (not for lack of wanting to sew – but for traveling + moving house!) But once I was back in Sew Mode, this came together in a couple of hours! I raided my stash for notions and was pretty pleased with how well everything matches! I’m actually trying not to stash lingerie notions anymore (it can be really obnoxious to have everything you need for a project except some weird width of elastic in a particular color, or whatever) and in the future will just buy on a per-project basis. But in the meantime – I need to work through my stash. Other than the cherry fabric, this was 100% a stash-busting project! Yeah!

One question I get pretty frequently whenever I post a lingerie project is whether the pattern (whatever pattern I’m sewing) is good for a first-time bra sewer. While I do generally recommend Orange Lingerie as a good resource for first bra patterns (my first bra was a Marlborough!), I honestly would not recommend the Boylston for your *very* first. Making and inserting the foam cups can be a little confusing, and if you’re already embarking on a new adventure in lingerie then you probably don’t want to add any more stress than necessary! Once you’ve sewn up a bra or two and understand the general idea of how they are put together, though, I think this is a great next project!

After I finished the bra, I had enough fabric left over to make some matching undies!

I used the knit fabric (uninterfaced, to retain the stretch), and finished the edges with red fold over elastic. The pattern is the Acacia Underwear from Megan Nielsen patterns. These were super fast to sew and look really cute with my new bra!

I actually have tons of this fabric leftover (I think I bought 2 yards and lingerie sewing just barely sips on fabric yardage), so I may make some matching knit PJs. It’s a little too thick for what I like to wear as a tshirt, and the color isn’t something I’d reach for in the every day – but who knows, maybe wearing this set will change my mind 😉

Anyway, I think I’ve waxed poetic enough about this pattern *and* I’m pretty sure they just swapped out breakfast for lunch at the buffet which I desperately need to investigate so consider this blog post officially done!

Have you tried this pattern before in a knit fabric?

** Note: The fabrics used in this post were provided to me by Mood Fabrics in exchange for my participation in the Mood Sewing Network. All opinions are my own!

Tags: boylston bra, bra, cherries, completed, lingerie, Mood Fabrics, Mood Sewing Network, orange lingerie

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Categories completed projects - new, Mood Sewing Network

Completed: McCall’s 7351 // Style Maker Fabrics Spring Canvas Blog Tour

1 Apr

Hey guys! I’m excited to be the final wrap-up stop for the Spring Canvas Blog Tour with Style Maker Fabrics!

It’s always really flattering to get asked to participate in a blog tour – although I typically send my regrets, as I think they can be a little exhausting if you’ve got a dozen people talking about, say, the same book or whatever. Kind of boring and personally I skip right over those posts! I found the idea of this particular blog tour a little more intriguing, though, as it is all about spring fabrics and spring fashions and all the fun stuff that comes with that! I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a necessarily fashionable person – I like the way I dress, of course, but I don’t exactly go out of my way to follow trends as they come into fashion. So this might not be a very “on-trend” outfit for me to make, but it is something that I will wear! So there’s that!

For this tour, I was given free range to choose whatever fabric I wanted from the new spring arrivals available at Style Maker Fabrics. Surprise surprise – I went with this navy rayon challis printed with cherries from Cotton + Steel, because I am nothing if I’m not predictable (I don’t even like cherries, but this is my third cherry print dress. See one and two. Hey, at least this one isn’t black hahaha!). It was a bit of a crunch to get this finished in time for my ~tour date~ – what’s with being out of town, getting sick, and then playing mad catch-up at work. But, spoiler, I finished it just in time to wear for Easter Sunday! Yay!

I used McCall’s 7351 to make my cherry dream dress, which is a new pattern from the McCall’s spring collection. It’s a classic shirt dress with a few extra options. I liked the idea of the straight skirt with the curved hemline that looks like, well, a shirttail, so I went with that option. Originally, I considered adding sleeves – but upon making my muslin, they were weirdly restrictive and I didn’t feel like going through the drama of figuring out how to fix it. Sleeveless dress it is! I actually prefer it this way; I think it’ll be more comfortable in the summer without sleeves.

I cut the size 6, based on the finished measurements, and didn’t make any pattern adjustments except the shorten the hem quite a bit at the end. The waist is a bit bigger than what I’m used to wearing – hence the belt – but I’m going to leave it like this for now because I suspect I will looove that loose waist come 95* weather 😉 I experimented with moving the placement of the buttons at the apex of my chest to eliminate button placket gap – but as you can see in the photos below, there’s still a tiny bit of pulling as it’s not *quite* in the right place. Whatever, I’ll figure it out with the next dress haha 🙂

Construction-wise, this is a really easy pattern. It has all the pieces of a proper button-up – separate button placket, collar stand, self-lined yoke – and I’ve made so many of those, I could do that in my sleep at this point. I used a very lightweight interfacing as not to interfere with the drape of the fabric, and finished all the seams with French seams and bias facing for the arm holes and hem. I used navy thread for the construction, and red thread for the topstitching and button holes. The buttons are from Mood Fabrics in NYC. I had to bring a swatch of fabric with me to get a good match – the cherries are more of an orange red than a true red – but this looks pretty good to me!

I LOVED working with this fabric! Rayon challis is one of my favorite things to wear – not necessarily to sew, as it’s pretty shifty and hard to wrangle (honesty, I’d rather sew silk crepe – I think it’s easier to work with!), but it’s worth the effort because it feels SO GOOD in hot weather. This rayon is a little heavier than most of the challis (challises? challis’? challi?) that I’ve worked with in the past. It’s almost the same weight of a poplin, so it’s not sheer at all and has a nice heft to it. It’s also easier to work with and not as shifty (but still feels really good!). This was my first experience using fabric from Cotton + Steel and I get why people love this stuff so much. It’s really luxurious feeling, wears and washes well. And cherries! 🙂 I still can’t get behind their quilting cotton (well, not as garment fabric. Sorry. Old habits die hard), but they can continue to make this rayon and I will continue to sew it 😀

Here it is on the form. I prefer it with the belt – I definitely need the waist definition (and the fact that the waist is already too big is also a factor here).

I always put a hook and eye at the waistline of dresses like this – it keeps things from gaping, but still allows me to wear a belt (buttons are too bulky under a belt, ew).

I know my photos don’t look very springy! It’s all green and flowering here in Tennessee, but not in my yard apparently haha. And while my neighbor has a beautiful cherry blossom tree that is in FULL GORGEOUS BLOOM right now, I do not have those kinds of guts to stand under it for photos! This is who was watching me take these photos – which is nerve-wracking enough:

Kevin & Wilbur! Did I mention that my roommate bought a second pig as a companion for Kevin? Well. Kevin has a boyfriend now. Also, we are pretty sure she’s pregnant now with his babies. Her stomach is massive – like about to drag on the ground because it hangs so low. Hopefully there will be piglet pictures in a future post! 🙂

blog tour

Hey, so that’s all for this part of the Spring Canvas blog tour – but be sure to check out all the other participants if you haven’t done so already! Lots of really amazing stuff to see 🙂 ALSO, just an FYI – but all domestic orders, regardless of size, ship for $5 from Style Maker Fabrics (and discounted international shipping, yo!). Cheap shipping is good through 4/3/16, so you’ve still got a couple days 🙂

Thanks again to Style Maker Fabrics for letting me be a part of this blog tour! 😀

Note: The fabric was provided to me by Style Maker Fabrics so that I could participate in their blog tour!

Tags: cherries, completed, cotton and steel, dress, mccalls, mccalls 7351, rayon, rayon challis, style maker fabrics

Comments 49 Comments
Categories completed projects - new

Completed: Vogue 1395

18 Jun

Confession: I don’t like cherries. Not for eating, anyway.

What I DO love are cherry prints, though (or any fruit, for that matter!). It probably makes me look like a total asshole wearing a fruit I won’t even eat (I’m currently having flashbacks to my high school days, back when I used to make fun of kids for wearing band tshirts of bands they’d never actually listened to. No, really, who does that?? High school kids, that’s who), but you know what? No fucks given. Go ahead and judge me.

Whatever, anyway, my point is – I like wearing cute prints. Cute prints can be hard to find though – and when you do find them, at lot of them tend to be printed on, like, quilting cotton. Or worse – silk chiffon (seriously, who the fuck is buying up all those crazy silk chiffon prints? I am so intrigued!). I feel like 3/4 of my sewing time is spent just trying to source cute prints that are printed on the type of fabric I actually like to sew and wear.

Sooo, with that being said – I was pretty excited to find this Anna Sui cherry print at Mood Fabrics. Not only is it basically the cutest fabric in the history of ever – it’s silk crepe! So glorious! Unfortunately for y’all, they are also completely sold out of it. Whomp whomp.

Immediately after securing a length of this stuff for my very own, I zeroed in on Vogue 1395 as my dream match pattern. Pretty cute, right? Vogue has really been stepping up their game with the last pattern release – as in, they had more than one wearable pattern this time (yay, Vogue!). Vogue 1395 intrigued me with it’s loose fit and strange overlay, and I thought the casual shape would look really nice with such a sweet fabric.

Sewing up this pattern (and fabric, for that matter) was pretty easy, although I did make some changes to the construction. The pattern calls for you to sew everything with a double-stitched seam – as in, literally two lines of stitching next to each other, and then finished. I couldn’t wrap my head around that one – why? for extra… strength? what? – so I compromised and used french seams for construction. I figured – hey, it’s technically a double-stitched seam, right? Plus, a french seam just looks way more elegant than a serged seam.

The armholes and neckline (sorry, didn’t take a photo, whoops) are finished with self-made bias binding (aka SILK CREPE bias binding). It looks really beautiful, if I do say so myself. It was also way less of a bitch to sew on than you’d think – despite the fact that we’re talking about bias silk crepe here. I used a lot of steam and manhandled that shit into submission. I also didn’t follow the directions on the pattern for adding the binding – they kind of had a weird method of construction, and I have a better one (sorry, but it’s true. Stay tuned for a photo tutorial during the OAL!). One big awesome plus is that the bias binding is applied flat, so you don’t have to worry about it stretching out and not fitting the area it’s binding – you can just cut the excess off! Hells yeah!

Size-wise, I cut the smallest size, which is an 8 in this design (anyone know why some patterns go all the way down to a 4 and some stop at 6 or 8? What’s up with that?). It fits ok – the arm holes, though. Whoa. Those arm holes were TERRIBLE. When I say they showed my bra, I don’t mean they just showed the very top edge. I mean they showed the ENTIRE SIDE of my bra (and a little bit below it!). Suffice to say, the arm holes were way too low! The back overlay does cover some of that, but it’s a moot point once you start moving around.

I fixed my dress in the most MacGyver way possible – I just pulled the shoulders up and gave them a new seamline. This was actually really easy thanks to my french seams, haha! I ended up pulling off about 1.5″ from the top of the shoulders – which yeah, that’s a lot! – and now the dress fits a hell of a lot better. The neckline obviously raised a lot too, but that’s ok – I kind of like it higher, I think it looks better with the shape/length. Plus, now I can bend over without fearing the gapeage.

Trying to figure out how the dress is pieced together? It’s really simple – there’s a front and back bodice (unlined, so make sure your fabric is opaque!), and the back bodice has an overlay that is only stitched down about 4″ at the center back. The slightly curved skirt is lined (I used china silk), and there is an elastic waist.

The back overlay crosses the side seams and ties at the front, which gives the dress a little bit of shape (that you can totally loosen after you’ve eaten a bunch of cupcakes because, fuck yeah, elasticized waist). Keep in mind that the wrong side of the ties show – it’s just a rolled hem all the way around, no lining – so you want to make sure you use a fabric that is relatively the same on both sides. The wrong side of this fabric is a little lighter than the right side, but it’s hardly noticeable.

What else did I change about the instructions? Well, I hated the way they had you hem stuff – lots of basting, pressing, and trimming. BOOORING! I used my rolled hem foot and finished much faster (with better results to boot!). I also could not FOR THE LIFE OF ME figure out how they had you attach the shoulders of all 3 layers. It just plain didn’t make sense, and I was french seamin’ that shit anyway (this was before the Armhole Disaster), so I did it my way and used french seams. Best way, I think!

Per usual, I threw both silks in the washing machine on cold before cutting, so now I don’t have to dryclean this guy! Yay! Talk about a casual day dress. I did notice that the black faded quite a bit on this silk crepe – so it’s more like, I dunno, light black or dark grey – but I don’t even care. It’s worth it just to know that I don’t have to schlep out to the dry cleaner every time I want to wear this. Which, btw, I would never do, because dry cleaning is the worst. Not because it’s terrible for the environment (although I reckon that’s a factor), but because I actually have to GO somewhere and PAY for it. Ew! Nope!

Anyway, cute new summer dress for meeee! I love it when my casual duds crossover into involving luxe fabrics. THIS, my friends, is why I sew.

As a sidenote – my pal Beth is gearing up to release her first pattern, and she needs testers! I know a lot of y’all were dying to dip your toes in to the tester pool, so here’s your chance to shine! Check out this blog post to see the skirt pattern in question (it’s super cute – I was actually on the list to test this, but my schedule this month has blown up all crazy so I had to bow out) and go ahead, throw your name in the hat 🙂 You know you wanna 🙂

Tags: Anna Sui, cherries, completed, dress, Mood Fabrics, Mood Sewing Network, novelty prints, patterns, silk, silk crepe, silkkk, vogue, Vogue 1395