Boylston bra – Hopefully Creative

Red & Black Lace Bra

Making my own red & black lace bra that I’ve never been able to find in the shops.

In January 2022, we were again hosting a graduation ceremony for some students and I tried to sew a dress for it. It was made of an odd red, fairly thick stretchy fabric. I knew that no one was going to see me during the online ceremony, so after struggling with it not fitting right, I gave up and threw it in the box of shame (it’s still there.. shame). However, it did have some scraps leftover and I recently decided to put those to use in a new bra. Same pattern as always, the Boylston bra from Orange Lingerie. This time I planned on adding some black lace since I’d always wanted a red & black lace bra. However, the only ones I could ever find in shops had padding up the wazoo and I couldn’t see my feet.

As usual, many construction errors were made. Somehow the bridge is not wide enough for the casings and I don’t think I left enough space in the underwire channels. I’d also twin stitched the cup seams down which somehow led to a pointy boob effect that was less than charming. After finishing the entire construction of the bra, I ripped out the cup-fabric seams and hand sewed them back in place again. Since my hand sewing is not the neatest ever, that made the lace extra important to hide those seams.

I found the lace in a local fabric shop and proceeded to fussy cut it out so I could applique it all over the cups. With some creative adding and snipping away of lace bits here and there, I really like the final coverage of the cups. It took me about 3 hours per cup to sew down all the lacy edges. Luckily, this turned out to be quite a meditative practice. Because it was black on black, neatness was less important – the sewing is mostly invisible anyway. I have yet to wear it for a day, but I assume it will wear similar to the first and second bras. The third one doesn’t have enough stretch in the frame so that one is a little tight. I’m going to try and learn from that experience!

Leafy Bra

Using some very interesting fabric to create another bra.

I’m not sure why, but one night last week, I decided that I needed another bra. So I got my box of bra making supplies, chose the fabric, grabbed the foam and got to cutting and sewing the cup and band from fabric and foam. After procrastinating until 3 o’clock the next day, I finally got started on it again and managed to finish it later that night, but not before a ton of mistakes along the way. I’ve yet again discovered that it does help to read the instructions and not just skim them, even if you’ve already made a pattern twice before. Especially with bras, order of construction is very important.

This fabric was called Lingerie Satin Black – non-stretch, they were not lying about the non-stretch. It wasn’t the most pleasurable to sew with but it got the job done. For the back, I used the same black stretch stuff as I’ve done for the others. I did follow the strap instructions this time, mainly because I didn’t have enough black strap elastic to do anything else really. This also means that it’s currently on the largest option in the straps but I think it works?

I really like the look of this one, the tiny leaves and colour make me very happy. I’m exited to start wearing it out. I hope it will be as comfortable as the other two!

Lemon Bra

Using the scraps to make a whole new wearable project. Almost entirely with findings from the hoard.

When a project gives me lemon fabric offcuts, I apparently make a bra..

For graduation this summer I started work on yet another pantsuit. This one was made of travel-fabric (not sure what it actually is called in English), some sort of very stretchy, no-crease knit fabric. It has a lovely lemon print and it is nearly finished. However, it doesn’t yet hold up to my penchant for putting lots of things in my pockets. So I’m still looking for a solution to that before I can call that project done.

While preparing for watching the Netherlands lose at the European football last Sunday, I found the tiny offcuts of the lemon project and impulsively decided to make a bra. I still had the pattern from the blue lace bra, the Boylston bra from Orange Lingerie. The hoard had nearly all the findings ready to go; foam, picot elastic, strap elastic, stabilizing tule, underwires, underwire casing, closure, sliders – the only thing I had to go out and get were two rings for the straps. The lovely lady from the local haberdashers found two rings for me and let me have them free of charge. She seems to really enjoy seeing people make things.

I got to making, and by the end of day one, all the fabric pieces were sewn together, it looked mostly like a bra. Then I took a day off to get my vaccine and play some Dungeons and Dragons online. On Tuesday, I got the rings and attached all the other bits. While I did have to rip things out because I lacked some accuracy, the thing went together pretty easily. I wore it yesterday when I went out for a 12 km skate an it didn’t bother me at all. That, to me, is the sign of a good bra. “Not being annoying”.

All in all, I call it a success so far. We’ll see how it will hold up to regular wearing and washing. The blue lace one is still doing well, so I hope that this one will too. For next projects, there’s a cherry fabric in my stash that is waiting to be made into a bra (and a dress) so I can continue to make a Bowl of Fruit Bras. That’s a worthwhile mission, I believe.

Blue Lace

First time bra making – it was a success, even if taking pictures was quite the failure.

It was July and I wanted a new project. I’m not entirely sure what came over me, but I decided to order a bra making kit and a bra pattern. I guess that I mostly wanted to see whether I (and my sewing machine) could make something that looked as complicated as a bra. The answer was yes. I managed to create my first bra and it fits really well and is very comfortable.

The pattern I chose was the Boylston bra by Orange Lingerie. I’d read some good reviews, I liked the shape and figured it was worth a try. The kit was nr 201 koningsblauw from Kantjeboord, I also bought some foam because I like my bras to be shaped. Once I had everything ready, it was off to the races!

I did some measuring and then I taped the cup pieces together out of paper to see if they would fit. They fit remarkably well straight out of the package so I continued on. There were no clear instructions on working with foam and I hadn’t googled well enough to find a suitable tutorial to follow so I just.. muddled along. The way I’ve done it is not the cleanest, but it works, so who cares. It’s only me who will see it in real life after all. The next one will follow some sort of tutorial to nicely finish the edge though.

In the kit there was some blue lace. I put that on the outside of the bra cup and then just folded in little pleats at the bottom until the lace lay flat. I then mirrored that on the other cup and sewed it all down with little stitches. I then added the side pieces in a black stretch stuff with a mesh overlay and the back pieces from just stretch. On went the elastics and the underwire casing. Off to the shops to find a fitting underwire, and then just sew the casing closed. I redid the straps a couple of times and probably made a bad decision there, using something stretchy for the fabric straps, but it seems to hold up quite nicely.

Since I don’t really feel like putting my torso on the internet and I don’t have a nice mannequin, you’re getting the bunny again. Bunny is apparently pretty similar in circumference, but he doesn’t have the goods to fill the cups or the shoulders to hold the straps up. Black and blue also has no intention of getting photographed nicely, however, I did have fun dressing up a giant rabbit in lingerie.

I’ve actually been making quite a lot during these coronatimes, but I don’t always feel motivated to write about it. There are no less than 5 other drafts waiting for me to finish them, so you’ll eventually get an ecclectic mix of stuff I’ve created over the last few weeks and months.

Tag: Boylston bra