This is my SECOND EVER bra and my FIRST EVER pair of undies to sew! I am so excited about this new development of skills. Seriously, I know everyone says it.. bras & undies can be super intimidating but once you jump in and just DO IT you will be totally addicted. I love that I now have the ability to make everything I wear except socks. (and no, I won’t be learning to knit any time soon so just going to leave it at that)
The Pattern I used is the ever-so-popular Watson Bra & Briefs pattern by Cloth Habit. This is a great, simple, easy to manipulate pattern that works as a great base for a multitude of lingerie making experiments. If you are going to be diving in and making your own undies pretty frequently, I definitely suggest adding this one to your stash.
For my fabric choices I used this really lovely taupe ITY that I found at walmart of all places (its shameful I know, I really need to stop even walking over to their fabric section). The pattern really lends itself to color blocking so I did a little pattern manipulation and added some black power mesh in the mix. I used simple black satin elastic for back straps and a pique’d elastic for the undies.
Now lets talk pattern changes. As you can see, I did a significant amount of experimenting with this pattern. A bold move for just my second bra but I’ve really been loving all these scrappy designs out there lately so I wanted to give it a try. I did the whole back bra in a strappy elastic style. For the briefs, I added two seams down the front of the pattern piece, more or less cutting it into thirds. I was then able to reflect the color blocking of the bra in the briefs. Went a little sexy with it and did the front sides and the whole back in mesh. As far as fit goes, I really didn’t make any changes. The pattern is drafted really well and true to size. It fits like a dream.
After posting my progress on instagram I’ve had a few requests for a tutorial on how I did the strappy back. And…. good news for y’all, I made a second one of these as a gift for my beautiful cousins lingerie shower and made sure to take a few pics as I went. I’ll be posting about her set, as well as little how-to for the strappy back in the next couple weeks.
Pattern: Watson Bra and Briefs by Cloth Habit
Fabric: Taupe ITY, Black Power Mesh
Notions: Black satin elastic, pique elastic, bra hooks & hoops
Difficulty: Medium to Advanced
Adjustments: Strappy back adjustment, added seams to briefs for color blocking
Finishes: Elastic folded to inside
Time: 2-3 hours
Sew it again? This will definitely be a wardrobe staple for me. Theres so much you can do with this pattern!
Until then,
Happy Sewing everyone!
[…] Fabric was a little more difficult. I didn’t have anything in my stash that would work, so I really wanted to be conscious of my buying choice. I was hoping to find either a recycled poly spandex or an organic cotton spandex and let me tell you…. both were very difficult to source. I didn’t find much in the way of recycled poly, so I went with this organic cotton spandex I found from Koshtex on Ebay. They assured me that it was thick enough for leggings (not trying to show everyone my buttcrack through thin stretched out fabric). However, I was not surprised to find that it indeed was not thick enough, and it was quite translucent when stretched. So I decided to double it up which I was worried would be too hot but has actually been fine. On the leggings I only doubled up the top section above the accent panel. The power mesh I used in the accent panel was from my stash, leftover from this Watson Bra make. […]