I have been pretty busy the last few weeks. Selling at Bricklane has been going tres well, although, i decided against doing it this morning when my alarm went off at 7.15am..... Maybe i shouldn't have gone to see Soulwax the the other night?....It was the snow that actually put me off. Would the drive have been worth it?...the last Sunday before Christmas.... eeekkk i don't want to know.
Knickers are my fav thing to design and make. I think the main reason is the fabric's. I love putting together gorgeous fabrics, especially mixing then with ribbons and jewels, sequins etc etc..... I am from Essex....but please don't think 'the only way is Essex'...... blugh ( I did take time to watch it however!) I think its brilliant how you can just put fabrics together and make something lovely. I actually took a pattern from a pair of my own knickers and graded this into S, M, L. The style of the knickers are quite 50s. The most popular knicker(ers) i sell is one style that randomly happened because i run out of fabric for the back piece. I had to use another piece of fabric. Which quite frankly is is the source of entertainment for many people.... especially foreign people and especially when i use lace? Maybe they aren't as laid back as we might think??
Fabrics.....
and
Voilà......
Flower print silk, lace and pink chiffon back insert
Flower print front with cream lace back insert
Pink chiffon front with lace back insert
Flower print front with flower print back insert.
BRA'S
I usually always make matching Cami tops to go with the knickers i make, but the one thing i wanted to be able to make propably is bra's and structured lingerie. So last week i took a weeks intensive course at London College of Fashion. Structured Lingerie. It was bloody brilliant and would recommend it to anyone. The lady who run the course, Linda, was lovely and knew so much. We made three different style Bras' and then took a pattern from one of our own.....
Non- Padded under wire.
The first Bra i made was a non-padded under wire. I had a gorgeous lace fabric. It was surprisingly quite easy to make. I was really surprised how it was put together and how you could do this at home using your own domestic machine. I used a brilliant machine (geek) that was a twin needle type machine that allowed you to attach the under wire casing to the cup with two rows of stitching (The under wire casing is also called Fortitube)
Without the under wire in.
Making the bra straps. You can buy the loops and rings. And bar tack the straps on.
Attaching the straps.
The finished article..... loves it.
Also the mannequin was brill. I want one, but there about £1000.
Padded Plunge Bra.
This one was gorgeous too! It was put together in the same sort of way, however you had to cut the padding smaller than the outer cups and then add tape to them to sew onto the outer... if that makes sense. Also it was really hard to sew on the bridge (the small piece int he center which joins the cups together!) When you are using a stretch fabric you need to ensure you use a non stretch fabric at the bridge of the bra behind the outer fabric as your bra will stretch and give no support.
Laying the pieces out be for sewing,
Underarm. Attaching the straps to the top and bottom elastic on the side wing.
Finished dotty bra with red bow.
Full cup Non wired.
This was my least favourite bra. I think it was the general shape i didn't like about it.... ganny'esq maybe? Although like my friend said its quite a retro style. It was quite straight forward to make as it was the third one we did. The hardest part was taping the seams and matching up the bridge to the cups so it wasn't wonky. Also when you are using lace it usually comes a a pair so you can mirror image the lace and so your bra looks the same (if that makes sense) Sometimes it can be pretty wasteful of the lace fabric if you have a large pattern.
Retro or Granny?
I'm currently making my own bra. We had to cut one of our bra's in half and take an actuate pattern from it.
For short courses at LCF......
