McCalls 2772 Archives - Page 2 of 3

Kryptonite lingerie

17/05/2015 6:02 am \ 30 Comments \ Carolyn

As soon was I saw this kryptonite-ish print I was just like, o gawd! must have…. And, naturally, lingerie was the very first thing that popped into my brain. Well, of course. It was only logical.
Mixing up my sci-fi sources there, but y’know wot I mean, right?
Haha! I’ve gotta be honest, this set gave me such a giggle to make. I’ve been humming the Superman movie theme in my head the entire time I was making it. Really.
Da dadadaaaaaaa! Da da dada dadaaaaaa!
I’m pretty rapt with them! I think they’re super cute. Super cute, gettit? Haha. I think even Superman might approve. Or at the very least, Sheldon.
Sorry. I just can’t help it! The thought of superhuman underthingies just cracks me up 🙂

Technical blahdy-blah…
Well, aside from the loud print the set itself is quite plain and featureless, really.
I used MakeBra 2610, and McCalls 2772 for the two pairs of matching undies. All black findings and elastics. The kryptonite print stretch fabric is from Fabulous Fabrics, the lingerie elastic I used for the undies is from Spotlight, and all the other bra elastics and findings are from MakeBra.
And I followed the absolutely fabulous MakeBra Youtube tutorial when making my bra. Honestly, MakeBra is fair dinkum the best resource for bra-making I’ve come across, not that I’m an expert or anything, but just in my experience in making 16 of my own bras; that is my honest opinion. They have a very nice range of findings and the.youtube tutorial is the most brilliant little tute, well worth taking the quarter of an hour or whatever to watch, if you have ever been tempted to have a go. It demystifies bra-making and takes the difficulty out of it, but totally. If you’ve been intimidated by the thought of making a bra, please do not be; it’s really not actually that hard!
My original review of the MakeBra pattern is here

squeezing detail close-ups into one jumbled-up shot

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: lingerie, makeBra 2610, McCalls 2772

“poison dart frog” lingerie set

16/01/2015 3:30 am \ 64 Comments \ Carolyn

Sounds like a weird inspiration for a lingerie set? Well this is my thing for prttynpnk’s Jungle January 🙂
I really wanted to do something a bit different, something other than big-catty. I googled jungle animals and was immediately drawn to the splendiferous group of amphibians that are the poison dart frogs; there is a huge variety of incredibly hued, jungle- and rainforest-dwelling frogs, in the most amazing array of beautiful, vibrant colours! The one that really leapt, or hopped? out to me was this little guy. Meet Oophaga silvatica, a native of Colombia. This colour morph is called “Koi”.

photo credit, Alonso Quevedo Gil/Fundacion ProAves

I loved its pale blue/red colouring and immediately envisioned some sort of lace overlay to mimic the markings.
I did a certain amount of agonising over “what” to make, I was a little tempted to make a dressy cocktail number, but practicality won. Keeping my new resolution to sew thoughtfully firmly in mind!
The pale aqua blue bamboo knit and red stretch lace are from Fabulous Fabrics, the baby blue shoulder strap elastic from Homecraft Textiles. The bra pattern is my current favourite; MakeBra 2610, an underwired bra with a pieced foam cup lining. I’m very comfortable with this style so I am super happy to have another one in my collection.

I made two pairs of matching knickers using two different patterns; the boy leg hipsters above are a copy taken off a rtw pair and the bikini brief below are from my tried and true McCalls 2772. This is the second time I’ve made the MakeBra pattern, the second time I’ve used the rtw pattern and about the millionth time I’ve used the McCalls… well, it feels like it sometimes anyway! The McCalls bikini brief pattern is hands-down my comfiest and easiest to wear, but I do still like making a different one occasionally, just for some variety.

I sewed the lace on the undies by machine but thought it ended up looking a little too… machine-y? so for the bra I sewed the lace on to the cups by hand, using invisible fell-stitching with the stitches hidden within the foam lining. This does look much nicer, no surprises there.
I couldn’t find any blue or red lingerie elastic to match in nicely, so instead used regular 6mm braided elastic and enclosed it inside a once turned-under hem, topstitched on the outside in zig-zag stitch. It doesn’t look quite as well finished on the inside as lingerie elastic would, but doesn’t look terrible. And it works just fine 🙂

Those very long-tailed, decorative bows on all 3 pieces: I’ve seen several rtw lingerie sets decorated with much longer tailed bows than usual and liked how it looks, so I decided to cut my tails quite long too. Hmmm, not quite sure now! They do look quite romantic and pretty, but I’m starting to wonder how practical they’ll be in situ. So these are currently on trial and may or may not get cut shorter.
Thoughts; ok I love this colour combination in theory, in practice it does feel a tiny bit on the flashy side for lingerie. For me, I mean. My usual style tends to run to the colourless and slightly boring, and this set is anything but! so I’m stepping outside of my comfort zone here. But I kind of still love it anyway. It’s not the obvious thing anyone would think when imagining “frog-inspired” but I’m totally going to think of frogs every time I look at it.
*ribbit*

Details:
Bra; MakeBra 2610, in aqua bamboo knit and red stretch lace, my review of this pattern here
Undies; (L) McCalls 2772, and (R) pattern taken from a rtw pair

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: jungle january, lingerie, makeBra 2610, McCalls 2772

floral bathers

01/12/2014 10:37 pm \ 52 Comments \ Carolyn

Bathers!
Pattern; old fave McCalls 2772, with the halter neck bikini top modified to be a tankini.
Fabric; one-way stretch from Fabulous Fabrics. I just randomly fancied floral this year.
I was immediately attracted to the clarity of the print, the realistically drawn, intricately detailed flowers and foliage. However, despite its obvious gorgeousness and I was pretty sure it would look great as a pair of bathers, I agonised somewhat over the fabric in the store for ages. Why? well, there is actually something extremely annoying about it.
See how I have oriented the floral bit so that the flowers stand upright? which to my mind is the only logical orientation for the print… well, the stretch in the fabric is actually going up and down, parallel with that print; and not across, or perpendicular to it, like you would rightly expect it to.
I know, right? Annoying!

You want the direction of most stretch to be going around your body, obviously! and well, who would want the flowers positioned that way?? There is a leeetle bit of stretch the other way, but not very much, so to my mind the way the print was done is just all kinds of wrong.
So I umm-ed and aah-ed for like forever over whether or not to take a chance on it.
Well, clearly I did in the end. And put the flowers in going up and down, exactly the way I wanted them. Sheer ~~pig-headed stubbornness~~ determination told me I could make it work.
And I did, by putting an invisible zip in the left side seam. Problem solved! Swimsuit purists will no doubt be horrified at the zip but look at me, not caring like a boss. At least it can be put on and taken off with the greatest of ease, which it would absolutely NOT do without that zip. Don’t ask me how I know that. I may or may not have sewn up that seam first, just to see, and may or may not have then spent a good five minutes struggling to get it on and then another five struggling to get it off again. Picture Houdini furiously battling with a straitjacket. Not exactly the epitome of effortless chic, haha.
Some quality time with my seam ripper, whack in a zip, done! Effortless chic is once again within my grasp, mwahaha.

The bikini bottoms; well, I obeyed the rules here and meekly cut them with the stretch going around my body, like you are supposed to. Choosing my battles wisely, here. Since the pieces are all cut from the plainer, all-green outer edges of the print then you can’t tell that the print goes the other way.

And I’m now totally ready for summer! Bring it!

Details:
Bathers; McCalls 2772 bikini modified to be a tankini
Hat; Country Road
Location; Bunkers Bay

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: bathers, McCalls 2772, Sienna

“watercolour” floral lingerie set

27/07/2014 9:40 am \ 48 Comments \ Carolyn

Another lingerie set, and a new-to-me bra pattern. This is pattern 2610 for a balconette style bra by makeBra, a Finnish lingerie pattern company. The two pairs of matching knickers are my usual McCalls 2772.

The watercolour fabric is from Fabulous Fabrics. When I made my floral birthday dress last year, I originally wanted to make a lingerie set from the fabric and was talked out of it. Obviously I do not regret making that dress instead; it’s one of my favourites! but that floral lingerie set was still in my head, crying out to be made. I really really wanted realise it, too. So recently I snuck out and sneakily bought 50cm of a different splashy floral stretch knit and quietly made it without showing the fabric to anyone who might talk me around hehehe… Note to self; 50cm is the perfect length to cut out a bra and two pairs of matching knickers.

The makeBra pattern; well, I LOVE it!! I’ve been hankering after a balconette style bra, one designed specifically for a foam lining. I really do prefer a foam lining. All my current bras are made using KwikSew 3300 which is an absolutely terrific little pattern, but it’s not specially designed for a foam lining. I usually forced a foam cup lining on it, found a way to make it happen, but it was always flying against the spirit of the pattern, if you know what I mean.
I bought a paper pattern in one size, which is a money saver. You can get it in a multisized pattern if you’re not sure of your exact size and that costs more. I’m familiar enough with my needed size that I decided to go with the single size and I’m happy to report that it does fit me beautifully and the sizing is spot on.
At the same time I bought two basic lingerie kits; black and ivory. THESE ARE FABULOUS!!!!!
It was a real pleasure, and so much easier, to sew a bra using such high quality materials and findings. Up until now I’d been making my own shoulder straps and underwire casings as per the KwikSew pattern instructions, and using rings, sliders and underwear elastic from Spotlight, which is meh, kinda-ok standard. Hey, absolutely nothing “wrong” with that of course, but now my eyes have been opened to how using proper underwire casings and really nice lingerie elastic is SO MUCH BETTER. I’m talking rtw quality here.

The makeBra website also has this absolutely brilliant video where you can watch someone making a bra. I was soooo impressed at how quickly and easily that girl whizzed up a beautiful bra in the video, I cannot tell you. Gobsmacked. It was a revelation! On viewing that video I realised how difficult I’d been making it for myself, by using less than good quality materials available and “making do”. She didn’t even pin her underwire casings anywhere to sew them on, compared to my homemade, bias-cut, double folded voile underwire casings requiring 7000 pins to hold it evenly in place…. man! Well, now; I know. I didn’t use pins either this time and I think the finish turned out pretty nice!

And her machine… *drool* My poor little old Janome is nowhere near that smooth. But I’m banishing any and all machine envy thoughts. I love my dear faithful little Janome.
I do have one tiny hmph with the makeBra pattern; you have to go to the website to get the full instructions, including elastic lengths etc. I mean, no real biggie, I’ve noted the relevant elastic lengths in with my pattern now, but would it have been really so hard to include that info in with the pattern? What if your internet was down when you wanted to use your new pattern? I would say that is my one pet peeve with modern-day online pattern services: I think when you buy a pattern, you should get with it everything you need by way of instructions, and you should not have to search through some website to find necessary information.
But small grumps aside; essentially a fantastic pattern, went together like an absolute dream. There will be lots more of these in my life 🙂

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: lingerie, makeBra 2610, McCalls 2772, pattern review

Lolly-pink lingerie set

22/05/2014 11:50 am \ 19 Comments \ Carolyn

Fulfilling a need rather than a want, I made another lingerie set for myself. It’s not speccie* but just a bread-and-butter everyday set, with a Tshirt bra and two pairs of matching plain undies. The fabric is a strawberry pink cotton/lycra blend from the Fabric Store in Melbourne, bought for the specific purpose of a new lingerie set but I was a little shocked when I dug it out of my stash. The colour was a bit more er, pink! than I remember. I’m sure it used to be a lot closer to my skin colour. Honestly, I swear it got pinker while it was sitting marinating in my stash. Seriously!
Anyway.
The bra is made using KwikSew 3300, modified by adding in foam cup inserts within the layers of the cup and hand-pickstitching the cup to the inside layer. The two pairs of identical matching undies are both the bikini bottoms of McCalls 2772, another old favourite that I’ve used for all my undies. It has a nice high-cut leg that I think I prefer to the boy leg cut. I have a small handful of boy-leg style undies and I find I’m always itching to hoist them up at the sides all day. Maybe I should wear a boy-leg more to get used to them. Get out of that rut. OK, next time. Maybe 😉
This is my favourite sort of style; a plain and simple little set, easy and comfy to wear with the perfect amount of padding and structure to keep me happy. Basics. Comfort food for the smalls drawer. 🙂
However;
I’m boring. I know I’m boring. I’m boring myself too! My new set is not exciting. Well, are basics ever exciting? This was definitely a cake exercise, not icing. I want to make icing now. I think I need to break away from the tried and true and make a more wow set next. I’m actually investigating a few different bra patterns *gasps*

*”speccie”; spectacular

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Kwik Sew 3300, lingerie, McCalls 2772

A pale set

31/10/2013 8:27 am \ 128 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve made another new set of lingerie… fairly plain and simple and prosaic but that’s ok since plain, simple and prosaic are my middle names. Three more of my middle names, that is. I have lots of de facto middle names, deployed in this blog selectively and when it suits my purposes to describe the various facets of my personality and how it applies to my wardrobe.
*eye roll at self-craziness*
The bra has no foam insert, thus the sad, limp, popped-balloon kind of a look it has in its picture above… It does have an extra, underlining layer of cotton jersey in the lower bra cup which gives it a nice thickness. But no padding = no visual appeal, I do admit that. Droopy and deflated 🙁 It looks heaps better on an actual body.

The fabrics have all been in my stash for yonks; an ivory coloured cotton jersey (Spotlight) that I’ve also used for all my white Tshirts and a white stretch lace (Fabulous Fabrics). Also, white lingerie elastic and decorative mini-bows made using creamy-peach coloured ribbon. Unlike my previous lingerie set which was all yellow-y, the presence of pure white here enabled me to use the bright white rings and sliders on the straps of the bra. It’s a pain that Spotlight has such limited colour range; maybe I should get global and go internet-notion-shopping for other colours. Maybe…
I made the straps using this very pro-looking ivory lingerie strap elastic. I spotted it in Homecraft Textiles, and bought some to try it out.

yo, looks like a REAL bra!!

Pros; it looks real clean and neat, and gives the bra more of a professional RTW look, plus it is very strong and sturdy and feels like it will last for aaaaages, even possibly outlive the bra itself and be re-cycled for future bras too.
Cons; looks definitely “lingerie-y” if it was to peep out under a top, whereas I think a turned-out fabric strap looks like a little camisole and doesn’t scream “BRA!!!” quite so loudly. Plus it’s more expensive to buy notions like this as opposed to making your own straps from the same fabric as your bra. Oh well, I bought enough to make one more bra, sometime down the track.

I bought the white stretch lace to fix up these undies, and there was so little left on the roll at the time I just bought the rest. Fortunately, that happened to be just enough for the bra upper cup pieces and another pair of Tanga knickers. These knickers are the easiest thing in the world to make and they look super cute on, but I hated that awful seamed crotch in my first pair and ended up re-constructing the whole crotch… for this second pair I eliminated that crotch seam right from the word go. I cut both the lace crotch and the cotton jersey panty liner using the panty liner pattern piece. I cut two strips of regular elastic 10% shorter than the length of the crotch edge, laid them inside the edges of the panty liner, turned under to encase and pinned to the inside of the crotch piece and then zigzagged all layers together, stretching the elastic to fit. This makes for a very comfy pair of knickers, with no.. er, wedgy issue 🙂

don’t worry, these are as yet pristine and unworn

The other pair of matching knickers is the bikini bottoms of McCalls 2772, in the same ivory cotton jersey as the bra. I really like my lingerie sets to co-ordinate together in some way, and it tickles me even more when the two pairs of undies in a set are different from each other but both still recognisably match the bra, somehow. The mix of cream, white and ivory in this set is very peaceful and calm, and very pleasing to my eye. And I expect it will be nicely unobtrusive under my pale summer wardrobe.

Details:
Bra; KwikSew 3300, cotton jersey and stretch lace, my review of this pattern here
Lace knickers; Tanga knickers, a free downloadable pattern here, modified to have no crotch seam
Jersey knickers; the bikini bottoms of McCalls 2772 with lingerie elastic attached as for knickers.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Kwik Sew 3300, lingerie, McCalls 2772, Tanga

Scorpio

26/10/2013 1:44 am \ 38 Comments \ Carolyn

… the sign of the scorpion.

Scorpio was always going to be the difficult one. I literally had zero idea what to do, right up until about last week. Googling scorpion images I did see some rather cool designs for scorpion tattoos that I quite liked. Which led to doodling stylised scorpions and thinking that I could do some printing, and then the practical wardrobe consideration that some of my older lingerie sets are starting to get to the end of their life, underwires starting to work loose, picot edging on some pieces starting to unravel… Boom, decision made.

I forgot to take many pictures of my design process … but these are two of my preliminary sketches for my scorpions. My final design had seven writhing scorpions, which I applied to the fabric first one way and then the other, to lose any obvious repeatability in the print. Ahem, probably a completely unnecessary thing to do considering the tiny pattern pieces in lingerie!

The fabric is a sandy coloured cotton jersey, bought as a huge roll at the Morrison remnant sale last year. The set used but a teensy portion of this! I wanted the scorpions’ colour to be sort of variegated, not flat; so I used two colours, an apricot-y pink and a yellow-y mustard, put down on the screen in unmixed blobs. The marbling turned out to be real subtle. You can just see it if you squint a bit 😉

To economise my print, I first laid out my pattern pieces in the most fabric economical layout I could, and roughly marked each piece out by dotting about a centimetre outside the cutting lines of each, using a purple water soluble pen. This was to ensure that I covered each pattern piece with my print fully, as well during the printing process I cut out some pieces and printed them separately to achieve better placement of the print.

Patterns: the bra is KwikSew 3300, modified to have a foam cup insert as described here. I left the straps plain and unprinted because I’ve got a couple of bra-strap-revealing summery tops, so a nice unobtrusive beige strap is just the ticket. I left off the sliders because the only ones I could get were brilliantly snowy white. which would have looked awful. So I just went with a plain strap, with a length of the lingerie elastic sewn between the back and the strap providing the wearing ease. Both pairs of matching undies are the bikini portion of McCalls 2772, a pattern I’ve used a lot for undies. I used unprinted self fabric for the panty liners but it blends in so perfectly you can’t even see them in the picture above!

I usually use 1cm lingerie elastic on my lingerie.. and when I went to get some more of the pale yellow, Spotlight only had the 1.5cm width; aaagh!… so I had to use this wider stuff on the upper sections of the bra. Oh well (shrug) you can only see that it’s wider on the inside!
You can probably also see the hand pick-stitching around the perimeter, my version of under-stitching that secures the bra lining to the foam cup. I don’t know if this stitching is necessary or not?but I just don’t like the idea of the foam cup not attached to anything, possibly floating about in the wash. I stitch it all together, just in case.
I did make some teeny mini-bows using orange-y mustard coloured ribbon, and trialled sewing them on the set as decoration, but took them off. That scorpion print is plenty busy enough already!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Kwik Sew 3300, lingerie, McCalls 2772, own design, printing

Blue marle jersey and creamy lace set

27/01/2013 6:00 am \ 45 Comments \ Carolyn

I’m very happy with this latest set, I just feel like I am getting happier with each one!
The bra is made using KwikSew 3300 (my review of this pattern here), the undies with lace across the top are my old faithful McCalls 2772, and the other pair with the two diagonal strips of lace are from a pattern copied from a rtw pair.
The latter is very cute, it fits somewhere between a bikini and a boy-leg style, a hybrid of the two. The construction was a bit more involved than the McCalls bikini but it’s nice to have some variety. I really liked how the back leg edge is on the fold, a bit different and a really interesting feature.
The set is made from a blue marle cotton-mix jersey (leftovers from this hoodie) and a lovely creamy lace, with creamy yellow lingerie elastic throughout and cream satin ribbon bows for decoration. The lower bra cup is lined with a thick-ish, stable, non-stretchy knit (leftovers from this skirt), and the bra centre piece and underwire casings were made with lightweight beige cotton voile (leftovers from this top)
The bra sewalong organised by Amy has been absolutely brilliant! If you are new to sewing lingerie I highly recommend checking out her detailed posts on construction. Her passion for lingerie is sincere and very inspiring! I’ve been keeping up with everyone’s fitting stories on the Flickr group, and the advice and tips given have been invaluable.

The nitty gritty about my bra; this will be of interest to my fellow lingerie nerds only….

This is the sixth time I have made up the KwikSew pattern, and the first time as a 32A and without a moulded cup insert.
I lined the lower cups with a thick-ish, stable, non-stretchy knit; overlapped with and then sewn to the seam allowances.. This gives a bit more needed oomph to that flimsy blue jersey fabric..
The straps: usually I go with a plain, non-adjustable bra strap relying on the stretch inherent in the fabric to provide the ease factor…. (did someone just say “slacker!“?) this time I followed the instructions and interfaced the straps, then satin-stitched a piece of elastic to the lower back ends to allow for the stretch. Here’s where things get creative…. my elastic options (and well, everything else too) are kind of limited here in Perth but I do still want to stubbornly but loyally support my local shops. My lace is a lovely ivory creamy colour so I chose the “skin tone” lingerie elastic to go with it. But the lingerie elastic is not very heavy duty on its own and I worried it would not stand up to strains of bra strap duty. So I zig-zagged a strip of more heavy-duty, braided 8mm white elastic to the back. This provides hidden strength, and the colour from the right side still matches everything else in the set.

The straps are adjustable… and if there is one thing I’m super disappointed about it is that the only sliders I could get are pure white… not happy, Jan! To my eye they stand out like a sore thumb.
For the same reason (limited colour choices) I had to choose a one-hooked, hook and eye closure; this being the only size available in cream. I’m actually fine with that, not being of a figure type that needs heavy-duty support in the chestal region, ahem. At least the colour matches! I just trimmed the back pieces to fit.
I cut the centre piece backing and the underwire casings from small scraps of beige voile, and yes, I did obsessively switch between blue, beige and white thread so that the stitching matches the fabric.