cloth habit Archives - Page 3 of 4

navy blue lingerie set

07/05/2019 8:05 pm \ 4 Comments \ Carolyn

So, items in my wardrobe I am currently very much in want, and need, of replenishing, are those that reside in my smalls drawer…. and with our Family Wedding just around the corner I reeeeeeeally wanted a lovely new set of lingerie for the Big Day! And of course, what better than one to tone in/match my wedding outfit?

So, without giving too much away, because guess what?!! my outfit is not even navy blue!!! NOT EVEN CLOSE!! anyway, this is that set!

I bought half a metre of navy blue stretch stuff and a short length of raspberry ribbon to decorate, all from Fabulous Fabrics; and imagine my delight when I managed to cut, not just my usual one bra plus two pairs of matching undies, but TWO new bras! and the requisite two new pairs of matching undies… thanks to the fabric being super wide. I also bought a very short length of navy blue lace… way too short as it turned out because cutting out the lace for my Watson bra was a headache and a half, no hope of pattern matching, and I barely could eke out a little bit of lace from the leftovers to insert into the two pairs of undies too… in retrospect I shouldn’t even have tried. Because while snipping out the jersey from behind the lace on one pair of otherwise finished and PERFECT undies, I actually cut in the wrong spot and sliced a neat little hole in the side of one. GNNNNNNNNNNNNNN! I almost cried! So I ironed a little patch of iron-on interfacing behind the hole, and it’ll be … fine. Moral of the story, don’t sew while tired, kids…. anyway, I’m not wearing that pair to the wedding!

The two bras, so one is the Watson of course, with the navy lace backed by some of Kelly’s wedding net as the lining… shhh! I “borrowed” a bit from the leftovers! and I really like that I have a little bit of the wedding dress in my outfit too! even if it is very much hidden and NOT obviously from the wedding dress. Otherwise, it is an unremarkable Watson. As usual, I constructed the cups so as to have all the seams neatly hidden away inside the lining, as per this post.

Both pairs of undies are the Watson briefs, with my usual modification so as to eliminate that awful horizontal front seam.

The other bra is my makeBra padded balconette style bra, fairly plain; but I really love this style of bra, it’s so good to have a few lightly padded T-shirt bras like this one for winter, and this is my favourite pattern for that purpose.

I used pretty silver rings and sliders with navy blue underbust elastic and bra straps for both bras (Homecraft Textiles), black lingerie elastic and black findings throughout (Spotlight), foam for the balconette bra from the makeBra basic kit, cream stretch for the linings from my stash, originally Spotlight. I’m so happy with both bras! and ONE set of the undies, at least, ahem…. and in any case I am looking forward VERY much to the day that I get to wear them!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I’m soooooooooooo excited for the BIG DAY!!!!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: cloth habit, lingerie, makeBra, makeBra 2610, watson

blue and green should never be seen

31/08/2018 7:01 pm \ 8 Comments \ Carolyn

I almost called this new lingerie set “frozen”; which to be honest is more like an accurate description of me, actually, while disrobing for the purposes of trying it on, haha. #comeonsummer But finally, today the last day of winter YAY!!! Around this time is typically a low time of the year for me, when I’m really flagging and running low on zip and zoom, just banking on the promise of warmer weather appearing, any minute now. I know I know; our winters are so mild, what have I got to complain about? Nothing really. And yet…? I do. Sad to say, I do. But I shall stop now. Becaaaaause… *pauses for dramatic effect* I have some new pretties!!!!

It’s a bit embarrassing actually, since this lingerie set has been all cut out, elastics and all the other bits and bobs present and accounted for, and the whole lot merely awaiting the sewing together bit for…. *mumble mumble* months now. Actually I believe I mentioned it the last time I presented a set of underwear, here on ye olde blog. I did a bit of a cleanup of my sewing space (Tim Gunn voice, there) and the pieces of this set got “tidied” away into my laundry cupboard, out of sight and out of mind. SAAAAD!! Anyway, it’s made now.

I’m very happy with this new set… I really love to have matching sets, and it’s even more pleasing if I can make the two sets of undies quite different from each other, and at the same time match each other, and the bra. Tick!!

Patterns:

Bra, or more accurately “bralette” I suppose, since it’s a fripperous little thing with no underwires or anything serious like that; it’s basically my own design, the same design I used to make this neon yellow one here. I draped the lace onto Bessie and cut and pinned and tried on here and there… and ta da!

The two sets of matching undies are made using:

1. the Watson briefs, which I’ve used a million times before. Not even exaggerating there. Oh, ok, maybe a little then 😉 And

2. the Tanga lace panties pattern a free pattern available on Burda style here. I’ve made this pattern up three times before; here, here and here. They look absolutely adorable while you’re wearing them, but the design is just not my favourite… the sides are completely unsupported and so have a tendency to slowly slide down your hips; meaning I’ve never felt 100% secure in them. But they really are soooo cuuuute! so here we go again… this time I downsized from a medium to a small, because it occurred to me, that maybe the medium is simply too big. I cut out a medium first – this lace is not cheap!! – but pinned the small on me, to see; and yep, small fits just fine. Got high hopes for these ones!!!

Oh, and I also did my usual, and very essential, crotch fix as described here.

Materials; Blue lace from Homecraft Textiles, green silk jersey was a hand-me-down scrap from Mum. Bralette is lined with a light peach-coloured swimwear lining fabric from the Fabric Store ( I have quite a lot of this) Elastics and all other findings from Homecraft Textiles. The blue fold-over elastic on the green watson undies was leftover from a previous project, this set. The lace knickers have a green panty liner, because it shows through the lace obviously! whereas the green undies have a white liner, because not enough fabric!

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: cloth habit, lingerie, own design, Tanga, watson

seagull set

10/06/2018 3:48 pm \ 18 Comments \ Carolyn

O hey!!

So, what to make when you just want a super quick and easy project? usually I would reply joyfully and with complete confidence “a lingerie set!”. And I mean, I know I’m really going to enjoy wearing this, what turned out to be a nice and very pretty set, in my opinion, and I really love it, and all’s well that ends well. But I guess every now and then I need to remind myself to never ever get blasé about inserting elastic. Honestly, when all goes smoothly then it’s all so easy and you wonder what all the fuss is about; when it doesn’t then, just saying; zig-zag stitch on thin stretchy jersey, in matching coloured threads is the ABSOLUTE PITS to unpick. THE PITS, I SAY!!!

Pattern; both bra and two pairs of matching undies are the cloth habit Watson, definitely my favourite tried and true nowadays. Construction of bra modified to have a full lining with all concealed seams, as per my tutorial here, and undies altered so as to not have the horizontal crotch seam, as per usual.

Fully lined… and it’s difficult to see, but I always under stitch the front V of the bra/lining, so as to keep the lining nicely tucked inside

Material; seagull printed cotton jersey from Spotlight… so pretty, I couldn’t resist the instant I saw it! It’s a nice quality and I think the duck-egg blue and soft teal wavey/wonky stripes are really lovely, and of course seagulls are pretty apt for a beach-loving girl like me! I bought it on a trip there with Cassie… she bought some too, for a Tshirt, I think? Lining is a soft thin, polyester; white elastics and findings from Homecraft Textiles; raspberry mini-bows made by me and recycled from a previous set.

I’m including this picture of the back of the bra; because for a long while now I’ve been putting the rings and sliders in this position, which is back to front from how it’s recommended in the pattern. I’ve tried it with the findings at the front, but found this way uses less elastic, and sits more comfortably for me. Yes, you do have to have the straps adjusted to the right length before you put it on, but I just like it this way, for the moment.

I made my usual two pairs of matching undies

Pretty raspberry mini-bows! I’ve probably said it a million times, but navy/pink is one of my all time favourite colour combinations! Now for a brief post-mortem, if you don’t want to read a good whinge, stop now!

So, my biggest mistake was absent-mindedly picking up a length of navy blue underbust elastic and inserting it fully to the lower edge of the bra, with two passes of zig-zag stitch PLUS a single row of basting stitches too, including requisite thread changes for colour … before remembering that “oh yeah, I had actually gone out and bought some white elastic for this set and the blue elastic was supposed to be for a different set I have cut out right now …. *grrr* what a dweeb. That took a good hour or so of unpicking in front of the telly… to get back to square one…

The other mistake was to try out a shortcut I’d thought of in my head by stitching the picquet elastic on the undies, jersey side up . i.e. elastic underneath; and stitching with a negligible seam allowance on the cotton jersey, to avoid having to trim it after the first pass of zig-zag stitch. This was a big mistake for two reasons; firstly, turned out I’d stitched too close to the picquet edge and stitched it FULLY DOWN! but couldn’t see that I’d done this because it was underneath, and secondly, the jersey edge kept wanting to buckle and slide underneath the needle, because it didn’t have enough of a seam allowance to the right of the needle to stabilise it going underneath my machine foot. Yes, I should have gone slow to check that all was going well, but I arrogantly zoomed ahead, struggling with the buckling but making it work with SHEER BLOODYMINDEDNESS and a smattering of judiciously applied cursing; and stitched a whole waist elastic on before conceding that indeed, this was a disaster. Result, another lengthy session with the seam ripper. See comment in the first paragraph about unpicking. Moral of the story; don’t try to shortcut this step! I’ve learnt my lesson!

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Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: cloth habit, lingerie, watson

I made some stuff…

31/01/2018 1:27 pm \ 25 Comments \ Carolyn

So, what are the latest whatevers to wing their way out of the atelier, hmmm? Well, I’ve been making LOADS of things, just nothing much to show for it, as yet. Remember I mentioned I was making a pattern? Well, making a pattern comes with making a truckload of muslins, of course. I’ve actually made 13 dresses in the last month alone, albeit they’re made from old sheets and are a bit rough, but still. Am I going to count these in my “one refashion a month” resolution? no, that wouldn’t be fair. How’s the pattern coming along? swimmingly! which is fab… I’m almost at the testing phase, I will be incredibly happy to get there after 8 months of preparation. 8 MONTHS!

In more tangible making results, I made a little romper for Sarah’s new little boy… Sarah LOVES stripes, so the descent into stripe-matching madness struck once again. I used Butterick 6372, which I’ve made twice previously, and just altered it slightly to be a romper, and added that cute little pocket. Would you believe I re-did that little pocket THREE flipping times?? First I made a curved bottom pocket, which was pretty awful, followed by a flat bottomed pocket. Equally awful. I do really like the pointed bottom pocket though, I think it’s super cute. It’s my favourite part about the whole romper actually!

The striped cotton terry is from Spotlight, hopefully the last piece of fabric I will buy this year, given Project Stash Reduction is a goal this year. The red cuffs and pockets were culled from a Wildcats Tshirt from my refashioning pile. Thus partially fulfilling my once-a-month refashioning resolution #virtouslyRubbingFingernailsOnChest.

There was a little bit of leftover striped fabric, so I also made an adult sized beanie, using a pattern made by Andrea of fabric epiphanies. I’m afraid though that I couldn’t for the life of me work out how to print it up so the sizing square was the correct scale… three attempts later, and eventually I settled for “pretty close”. I estimated my beanie is actually about 7-8% bigger than the pattern, and then Sarah informed me it is too small! aaaagh! It is a pretty cute pattern though, I will still probably give it another go one day 🙂

The stripes do match up all around though, both inside and out, a matter of personal pride for me. I bound the beanie using a strip of blue merino, given to me by Mum.

So, after cutting the romper cuffs and pocket from the Tshirt, I still had quite a chunk of Tshirt leftover, well this wouldn’t do! I immediately realised, as you do; that I could get two pairs of knickers and a bra from the leftovers. Well, I’m sure that is the first thought anyone would think, hmmm?

I used the cloth habit Watson pattern, and cut out a bra plus two sets of matching knickers… yes, it was an XL Tshirt. I avoided as much of the advertising as possible and tried to stick to just the Wildcats logos as much as I could.

As I was making it, it occurred to me… is jungle January still a thing? See, in the past few years I’ve been in the habit of making a set of underwear for jungle January, and one of the things about the basketball is that the Perth Arena is known as “the Jungle” during the Wildcats games. Like, they’re always screaming “WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE!!!!!!” and going on about “…. HERE IN THE JUNGLE…!!!!” “Jungle” I guess because, wildcats. Anyway, it occurred to me that I was serendipitously making a jungle-themed set of underwear again. Without even meaning to! Win!!!

Do you wanna hear something funny?

I’ve been in the throes of making this set for several weeks now, fitting it in as light relief in between working on my pattern, you know; and I took it along to the sewing guild meeting yesterday in the hopes of finishing it up. And there I had the joy of seeing Emma also making a Watson bra. Except her’s was really beautiful; super pretty, with chartreuse lace, pink and blue elastics, generally all round gorgeous and very feminine. Just absolutely lovely in every way. Such a contrast to my sorta … lowbrow one made from an old basketball Tshirt, With logos, and everything. Like something a teenager might wear. Or more like, refuse to. Omigawd, so embarrassing. I swear I don’t try to be like this. It just happens. Every now and again, I think back to an anonymous commenter who used to frequent my blog, and who couldn’t resist from pointing out my 1) immaturity and 2) unnecessary penny-pinching-ness, among other things. Ahem, guilty as charged!

Fully lined with a lightweight stretchy stuff that I discovered during my stash clean out… My tutorial for fully lining this pattern to enclose the seams, is here

I thought about not posting this next one… but wellll, here goes… I’ve also made another thing, squeezed out from the Wildcats Tshirt, I mentioned it was an XL yeah?! I also got a little cropped top, much nothing to write home about at all… I made it specifically for my new workout aspirations. I hadn’t made any working out or losing weight resolutions on New Year’s Eve … but just lately I’ve been feeling a bit stodgy and decidedly… “matronly”, is the only word I can think of. So I decided to do something about it, and purchased the Kayla Itsines Bikini BodyGuide. One thing you’re supposed to do before even getting started is take a picture of yourself, preferably in a sports crop top and little shorts, and then take a new picture in the same ensemble every week as you work through the guide. So obviously I had to make myself a little crop top, asap! I used my customised version of the Closet Case Nettie bodysuit pattern and whipped up this super basic thing, just edged with a line of white overlocking thread around all the edges, which I think looks nice with my little white shorts. I made those too.. they’re are the eponymous Carolyn pyjama shorts. I rolled them up a bit, to show as much abdomen as I dared. Hopefully, it’s going to become a more shapely one in a few weeks! Don’t worry, I will not be posting a new picture here every week, but I’ll probably do an summary when I finished the course!

I started out with the beginner’s schedule, and practically killed myself just doing day 1!!

before…

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Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: baby clothes, babywear, Butterick 6372, Carolyn, Closet Case files, cloth habit, jungle january, lingerie, Nettie, top, Wardrobe Refashion, watson, workout gear

more liberty lingerie… and why do I make my own?

30/06/2017 3:52 pm \ 29 Comments \ Carolyn

On the “news” * the other night they had a little segment where Kmart introduced their new range of $5 bras, which is insanely cheap… and all over again I got to thinking about why I make my own in the face of the ever plummeting prices of rtw clothing. See, a lot of people I know think I’m completely bonkers (source; they tell me) for making my own when it’s so cheap to buy a perfectly pretty and well-made bra, and without the angst of sourcing all your own bits and pieces and spending the few hours it takes to put it all together.

* “News” in inverted commas… because some of our local news programmes go for a full hour here while at the same time this is a city where basically nothing ever happens. The world news, or REAL news, is raced through in about ten minutes; local news might be another one or two minutes, tops, and usually is something like “the Mayor in hot water because she tried to claim her wardrobe as a work expense!”; the twenty minute sports section is always lengthily and disproportionately weighted towards Aussie rules football and stats and is highly detailed, let’s not even go there! ; the weather is a brief high point; and the rest of it is thinly disguised ads. The Kmart bra story definitely fell into the category of thinly disguised ad.

So, summarising into a neat and tidy little list of pros and cons…

CONS

it’s relatively expensive to make your own. During my year where I added up how much I spent on my totally handmade wardrobe, I discovered that bras and undies were amongst the priciest of things to make yourself. Sure, you’re only using teeny pieces of fabric and/or lace, but once you include elastics, hook and eyes, rings and sliders, and even the optional underwires, underwire casing and foam paddings… well it adds up pretty quick!
it’s fiddly
if you buying a rtw bra, you can reject any one that is not completely perfect and just keep trying on different ones until you find The One… when you’re making your own it takes time and maybe even a few less-than-satisfactory bras before you work out the perfect fit for you with any given pattern.
it can be difficult if not impossible to find colour-matching bits and pieces. You can dye your own (more fiddle) or settle for good old boring black, white or beige. Kind people may give you their old colourful bras from which you can harvest the colourful bits.. however in my experience the hooks and eyes closure at the back which is the very hardest bit to source in different colours is usually the very first bit to look hideously wrenched and worn out, and is not worth saving.

PROS

you can be creative… express yoself!!
I feel a lot better about myself and my wardrobe if it is my own labour being poured into it, rather than someone else who is being grossly underpaid for doing so. Many years ago when I took my Lifetime Pledge in Wardrobe Refashion, I thought long and hard at the time about doing so… and my reason has remained unchanged… I love fashion, I love the artistry and creativity and self-expressiveness of it, but I can only live with myself by taking that ethical stance
it’s actually kinda fun
it’s fiddly. Yes, I also claimed this as a “con” but I’m the kinda loon who actually thoroughly enjoys doing detailed and fiddly things.
I like that my free time is spent doing something productive and useful… and there’s not much more productive and useful than making your own consumables. Plus, last but certainly not least:
I LOVE sewing with a weird and totally unreasonable passion. Perhaps that should have been number one on the list.

Well, anyway, there it is, annoyingly inconclusive. I suppose what I’m saying is that as long as I’m able, I’ll probably continue to make my own, while questioning my own sanity at the same time. Definitely bonkers.

Oh, and yes, I made a new lingerie set… ta da!

Fabric; Liberty cotton Clifton jersey Josephine’s Garden in the Pink colourway … this is the other piece of liberty cotton jersey that I bought from the Fabric Store in Melbourne during my weekend away there with Mum, Cassie and Tiffany… and now I’ve made up all my Liberty and have NONE LEFT! (sob) Knicker elastic, and the white cotton jersey used for lining from Spotlight. The pink ribbon that I used to make the little decorative bows, white rings and sliders, and the bra hook and eye thingie were all from Homecraft Textiles.

Pattern; both bra and the two identical pairs of matching knickers are the Watson by Cloth Habit… with a few variations of my own, namely:

1) the front crotch seam has been eliminated from the knickers, as per usual.

2) I really like the shape of the Watson bra pattern, however the raw edges showing inside has always been a problem for me… anyway I made this one so the bra cups + front band are fully lined and with NO raw edges showing on the inside. My method is outlined below.

Stitch the side seams…

then stitch the cup into the cradle curve… taking care to leave free the narrow upper seam allowance of the cup at the centre front

Wrong sides together, stitch the cup lining to the cup/cradle seam allowance, cradle side up so you are stitching along the previous stitching line. After this, fold out and twist the shell and lining cup pieces so they are right sides together and stitch the upper, inner-front cup seam with a narrow seam allowance. (no picture of this, sorry!)

Pin cradle lining right side to the seam allowance of the existing cup/cradle seam allowance, and stitch together with the shell pieces uppermost, so you are stitching over the previous stitching. Trim and grade seam allowances…

Now, take the cradle lining and twist it round so you can pin the side seam edge to the outside of the bra side seam… i.e. the right side of the cradle lining is up against the wrong side of the bra back piece. Holding the pinned seam with the shell fabric uppermost, and taking care not to catch any other bits of fabric in with the stitching, stitch along the previous side seam stitching.

Trim and grade seam allowances…

Looking pretty neat and tidy already!

Attach the upper and lower elastics as per usual, and it’s all perfectly clean and neat in there with absolutely no exposed raw edges… *satisfied sigh*

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Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: cloth habit, lingerie, own design, tip, tutorial, watson

liberty lingerie

16/06/2017 11:15 am \ 30 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve made some new lingerie… arranged here ever so prettily with some sweet little blooms gathered from my garden and scattered just so… doesn’t it look nice?

Patterns; ye olde favourites… MakeBra 2610 for le brassiere, and the two sets of matching knickers are the cloth habit Watson briefs modified so as to remove that awful front crotch seam. I’d bought 1.5m of the bra strap elastic, which turned out to be enough to make the shoulder straps as double straps. I’ve seen this done on a few of the more high end rtw bras around and I likey! so it was good I had enough to have a go at it!

Fabric; I bought this Liberty jersey from the Fabric Store in Melbourne, (NOT an affiliate link, just there for courtesy) during my trip away there with Mum, Cassie and Tiffany in March; such a fun trip with much shopping and chatting in a girly way there together. It is called Scilly Flora, in pink, and I immediately fell in love with its playfully naif flowers in a bright and cheerful kaleidoscope of red/pink/orange/mauve /green. Apparently it’s a reworking of a child’s hand-drawing, which is a really sweet idea.

White cotton jersey for the knicker lining, the cup foam is from my MakeBra basic black kit, still got lots of that left, yay! and I got the electric blue foldover elastic, bra straps and the red underbust elastic from Homecraft Textiles in Vic Park; really, they have the most wonderful and amazing range of elastics EVER!! I’m always blown away a bit every time I go in there. Sometimes I wish I could justify making a new set of undies every week, just so I can utilise all the colours they have there… but lately I’m aiming to only replace things as they wear out now… as in, one thing out, then a new thing in. A little restraint, please. Oh, I also got the black rings and sliders and the black hook and eye thing from there too.

It was a little bit of a pain changing threads a million times while making this set; I switched between blue, red, black and white threads AND bobbin threads MULTIPLE times, like I’m not even kidding I spent more time switching threads in my machine than I spent actually sewing… seriously! But I think it looks really pretty, and I love it. My underwear drawer has never looked so colourful!

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: cloth habit, lingerie, makeBra, makeBra 2610, watson

Jungle-y underdaks

29/01/2017 10:31 am \ 28 Comments \ Carolyn

Can you even see my latest creations…? Not really? Well, that’s because it’s all so perfectly and beautifully camouflaged in the deepest, darkest, greenest depths of ~~my garden~~ I mean… the jungle, of course!!

So it’s January, and I’d begun to notice a few jungle-y things popping up on my IG feed… oh, it’s that time again…? well alrighty then!!! hurrah! Jungle January! the brainchild of Anne of Pretty Grievances I LOVE sewing challenges!

I’m continuing on with my tradition of making a new set of bra plus undies for my thing. The last two years I’ve taken the humble frog as my inspiration, firstly here and secondly here… this time I wanted something different, and by that I meant a creature other than a frog. I had a few different ideas… but nothing jumped out at me… finally I just thought; I’m going to google “jungle” and select the top rating picture as my inspiration, no further argument. I did, it, held my breathe, what creature was I going to have to “interpret”…? and this is what came up…

source, kingofwallpapers.com/jungle

THE JUNGLE ITSELF. OF COURSE!!! #facepalm

Truly magnificent, yes? Nature at its most glorious.

First impression; well, just GREEN. How extravagantly, intensely, and totally green it was. Fabricwise, I was immediately reminded of a length of stretch stuff that Mum had tossed out and that I had immediately squirrelled away, it has a random painterly print on it; predominantly green with some blobs of other colours subtly melting all together; I think it was originally from Fabulous Fabrics. I dug it out, positioned my pattern pieces on it strategically so as to include as much of the greenery bits as possible, emphasise the “jungle-y” parts of it as much as I was able.

There are even a few, almost snake-scale-y bits, ranging from mossy, yellow-y green…

right though to an almost aqua green

…and can you almost imagine here the golden sunlight breaking through the high-up leafy canopy, and maybe a bright scarlet flash of parrot’s wings, or a single jungle bloom…?

Patterns; my old favourite MakeBra bra pattern, and the two pairs of matching briefs are both cloth habit Watson. I used the makeBra instructional video on how to make a foam-lined bra to make mine; it’s a brilliant video, completely foolproof. Some of my materials like the foam and some of the elastics are from the MakeBra basic kits that I bought last year, though the underbust bra elastic is from Homecraft Textiles because the stuff in the MakeBra kit is not such good quality this time, unfortunately. The lingerie elastic on the undies is from Spotlight. I bought up a huge amount of this during a sale one time and am still using it up!

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: cloth habit, jungle january, lingerie, makeBra, makeBra 2610, watson

set de la tree frog

15/01/2016 1:24 pm \ 27 Comments \ Carolyn

My new lingerie set is inspired by the red-eyed tree frog. Yes, really! and this is my “thing” for Jungle January, the fun yearly challenge set by Anne of Pretty Greivances.

Deja vu!! because last year I also made underdaks, also froggy-inspired.

photograph credit, Carey James Balboa; source

So, hello there, Agalychnis callidryas. This little cutie is native to the rain forests that extend from Mexico down through Central America to Columbia… and thank YOU, Wikipedia. Also according to Wikipedia, its name callidryas is derived from the Greek for beautiful wood nymph. So while I am wearing it I shall imagine myself as a … bwahaha, I’m joking of course, I cannot even type that with a straight face. Lol.

It’s an exquisite little creature, is it not? the colours are quite magnificent. So bright and vivid and with those eyes; big, round and true scarlet, with a vertically aligned pupil. I positioned my two-hole buttons accordingly, and used black thread on purpose to mimic that.

Well I reckon it’s the attention to the whimsical detail that becomes the most fun thing about making your own clothes!

Actually this was all a bit fortuitous… I kinda forgot about Jungle January, then Sue posted her dress and I was like doh! Jungle January! aaaaaagh! but as it turned out, I’d only just cut all the lingerie pieces of green jersey, like the night before. I’d managed to squeak these pieces out from the leftovers of a Tshirt… anyway, I looked at the colour and immediately thought “frog!”

So, with the perfect colour fabric (Fabulous Fabrics), plus it was already cut out and ready to go, I already had the blue fold-over elastic, navy blue underband elastic and the red buttons in Le Stash… so I just needed to dash out to Homecraft Textiles for some orange fold-over elastic; bob’s your uncle.

squeezing all details into one picture…

Patterns; both knickers are the Watson briefs and the bra is my favourite pattern, MakeBra 2610. This is hands down the most wearable of the bra patterns in my collection.

Oh, I mentioned the lingerie set was leftovers from a Tshirt? well, now seems a good enough time as any to blog about that too. Lime green jersey from Fabulous Fabrics, pattern is the Nettie byCloset Case patterns, my go-to Tshirt pattern. It’s actually way too hot for me to really wear it right now, it’s 37C phew! so this is like a 20 second photo shoot happening here. I bought this fabric at the same time as the black-and-white striped fabric for this recent skirt, because I reckoned they’d be kind cool together, Tim Burton-ish, in a good way.

Actually, this project is pretty funny to me; see, the Tshirt was really my primary objective, because I wanted more colour options in my Tshirt department… the lingerie was cut out just as a “oh, what the hey” afterthought because the fabric was already out. In all likelihood the pieces would have got shoved away like the three other unmade lingerie sets I’ve already cut out under the same circumstances…. oops! must make those too… *blush*

Then Jungle January breathed inspiration into those scrappy bits, and I got all excited and super focused and enthused about making the lingerie and it became a much bigger deal in my head… I almost forgot about that Tshirt!

Later edit; I eventually got tired of the Tshirt’s lime-green colour and dyed it brown, now it’s a delightfully sludgy shade of olive!