XXIII

22:09 Yoshi 1 Comments

---

Boobs are great, I think everyone can agree on that. What approximetely 50% of people don't know is how expensive, sometimes uncomfortable and hard to find in a right size a bra can be. Lucikly, we are living in a time of a temporary return of 90s fashion, including going braless. However, not everyone feels comfortable/confident enough doing so and on that subject I'm just gonna say: bralettes, dude. Bralettes.
They are quite popular now, pretty and super comfortable. Quite often ridiculously overpriced. On etsy.com, a website dedicated to selling handcraft (with less and less actual handmade things nowadays, unfortunately...), you can find a bralette for 150zł/£25 on average. Don't know about you, but that is a bit too much on a pricey side for me, considering there is not much craft going into that. There's no wiring, no actual cup, just sewned together lace. It's not much better when you visit a mainstream lingerie store, for research purposes I've checked Etam. Price range of a bralette? 108-142zł/£21-£28. 

Do I have to say anything else? Nah. Let's just get to sewing.

You can find plenty of tutorials on sewing a bralette on the Internet, but I myself have a few things myself, so let's just go through the whole process. I'll add a few links to video tutorials in case you still have questions how to sew, but seriously, it's no rocket science. Quite frankly, I think it's an excellent thing to start with your adventure with a sewing machine if you're a beginner.

So what are you gonna need?

- An elastic lace, min. 12cm (~4.7") wide, I found 1m (~3.3 feet) just enought to make the most basic bralette. I recommend to focus on the colour rather than the design.
- An elastic, best 2-3cm (~0.8"-1.2") wide for a steady support, I bought 1m in case anything goes wrong (most elastics double their lenght when stretched, but for comfortable wearing and visual reasons, it's best to calculate the lenght of the elastic to be half-2/3 of your underboob circumference, it varies depeding on one's comfort)

 
- A ribbon for straps, 1,5cm-2cm wide (~0.6"-0.8"). For lenght, just measure the straps in one of your old bras or buy bra straps. They will be a bit more expensive, but the bigger disadventage is the limited choice of colours. As the bralettes I am making are for my own use only, I went with simple ribbons.
- What kind of fastener you choose strongly depends if you're going for a typical bra look or something more corset-like. For the latter I would recommend either hooks (top left) or underwear snaps (bottom). For a simple bralette, ask for a bra or bikini fastener at your local haberdashery (they will most likely look very similar to the top right).


This is the pattern I have used. Unfortunately, the imagine is not up to right scale so you will most likely have to print it couple of time till you get it more or less right. Don't stress to much, remember that the lace is elastic, therefore very forgiving. The letters on the bottom are supposed to guide you through sizes, but the truth is I've used C whereas I'm 65E in most bras.

Source: jupitapraxis.com

It worked quite okay for me, but I know for sure that there are many more variations on the Internet, just waiting for you to pick them up and use!
The rule of thumb for almost every single one of them is to put the completely flat edge of the pattern (on the picture: the closest ones to right and left) next to the fancy adornment on either side. As all of my laces had quite thick arcs on both ends, I've positioned the pattern so it barely touches the closest to the middle end of an arc; the space that's left is just enough to be our reserve while sewing. You need to cut each part 2 times.


The sewing process is pretty straight forward: you sew the parts together by the arched part. However there are few things that will make sewing laces, elastics and working with ribbons much easier:
- while sewing laces together, have a piece of parchment underneath. It will prevent accidential streching while sewing and help the sewing machine to move the material along. After you finish you can easily just tear it off
- remember that while sewing delicate fabrics you shouldn't use dense stitch! This and the previous tip applies to sewing chiffon as well
- if you don't have an overlock or just don't know how to use it, you can sew your caps to the elastic by using a wide zig zag on your normal sewing machine. It will retain flexibility of both of the components.
- elastics that wide are very often quite thick as well so instead securing the end by folding it up, use a lighter to carefully heat up the end. Don't panic if it catches fire - just blow it and tap your finger on the edge. Voila! It  shouldn't cause any more problems.
- to secure the end of the ribbons use a tape that has glue on both sides. When you have that, all you have to do is mark ~1cm (~0.4") reserve on the end, fold and iron it, put cut to size tape between that and iron it again. Congrats, you've saved yourself a lot of manual sewing! (protip: for the most ribbons, 'silk' setting on an iron works just fine)


Having all that, I've dived into pinterest and looked through bralettes for some inspirations. So far, I've made 3 of these, but more are coming very soon.



All these types are a result of pure experimentation, which I highly recommend. That's the way to go, that's how you learn the fastest :) So how does it look price wise? Well, I payed ~60zł/£12 for 3 bralettes worth materials. There is literally no downside to making your own bralette - it's cheap, it's easy and fast to make, not to mention you have the freedom to make it as you want it to look. It's an obvious choice or me. Sorry, Etam and people of Etsy!