If you have a bunch of fullness at the neck edge but you need the apex part of that piece to be the same, you could always break it up in two: the neck edge could be a rectangular-ish piece 1-2" wide with the fullness taken out, and the apex part could be, what, triangular? But smaller. Does that make sense?

If you've got a flat area, it's because you need more fullness there. If it's bisected by a seam, you can add it there. Otherwise, you can try adding at the nearest seam or edge, or splitting it and adding along a dart or seam.

If you got a tension line to go away and you like where things ended up, even if it doesn't precisely follow the original line of the draft, I would go for it. Just reshape the edge to suit.


When I'm making muslin drafts that don't have to look good for anybody, I write right on there which piece it is. And I always write on the same side (usually the 'right' side) so it's obvious which bits go out and which bits go in. It's just easier.

Revision 3 is completed. Results:

On the upside, the inside of the underwires fit against my body than any other bra I've ever worn. That's sort of thrilling.

The band is okay. I made it smaller than the first version and bigger than the second version. Also used 2 layers of power net. Also, on the first two versions, I had a heck of a time attaching the small piece of elastic that runs from the hook/eyes to the strap platform. There just wasn't enough space there to to curve a piece of 3/4" inch elastic and it was clumsy-looking. This time, I eliminated that swoop by making the top of the wings into a straight line running from the cradle to the hook/eye end. Then I attached the ring. It worked okay and was much easier to sew..

Cups -- well, they're pretty good, but not good enough! Still a little pointy, with the upper breast being a bit like a ski-slope; that's a good profile, but I want a high, round, pushed-together shape, like a Curvy Kate or Panache Cleo. The cups seem to need more support on the sides to squish everything inward.

One big problem I had was that, although I had redrafted the entire pattern using longer underwires for this version, when I put the wires in, they were too big for the cups and channeling. I have no idea how that happened. I just switched out them out for a smaller set and was satisfied with the appearance and fit. But it does bother me that my drafting went wrong.

The fit of the cups had some weirdness.

This is a three-section cup. The lower outside cup creates a flat spot, if that makes sense - the shape it gives me is not fully rounded, but has a sort of flat plane over a 2-3" area.

There was a definite line of tension from the strap attachment at the cup apex (which I had already moved toward the outside) down the side of the cup. I wonder if some of that tension showing so extremely might be because I'm making my samples in a thin muslin.

To fix that, I moved the strap attachment from the cup apex all the way over, as far as possible, balconette-style, to the outer edge of each cup, almost attaching to the top of the underarm hem. That worked to remove the tension line, but left a big gap at the neck hem and a lot of extra fabric on the outer edge of each cup. I pinned up the slack on the outer edge and plan to use that shape for the next draft if possible... but I'm a bit bewildered about what do with the neck hem. I guess I'll baste along that hem, gather the looseness, and use that shape for the next cup pattern.

Actually, at this point, I'm pretty bewildered in general! Now that I've gotten the most obvious problems solved, there are a myriad of more subtle problems that are harder to troubleshoot.

In terms of craftsmanship, the parts I'm struggling with most are:

1. Lining up the cups so the horizontal seams are even and are angled identically.
2. Sewing the channeling so that the stitching looks neat on the right side of the bra. This last bra looked like hell in that area. I wouldn't have wanted to wear it even if it had fit properly.
3. Keeping the rightsides outside and the insides inside! I sewed 2 right cups this time, even though I had set up a careful system to be sure of which was which, and I'd actually cut and sewed one whole cup before cutting the other one! I just had to laugh at myself.

I hope that these posts are useful for someone else who is trying to master her first bra. I really thought this third version would be The One, but now I'm thinking that it's going to take at least 2 more tries. Maybe more!

Hi All,
To dezibela,
Well done, you are thinking on your feet and yes the 3-part cup has slightly more fullness. You can add a bit more fullness by curving the overbust seam lines as well but do not take it to far as it will interferer with the angles that the lines make with the edge of the cup.

To ceciled,
When you say that the wires in shop bras end up in your armpits, this is what I mean about classic bra cups being cut for a cone shape, the cone gets bigger as you go up in size and so dos the underwire. So the cone may hold the breast volume but the base of the cone is too big for the breast root, were the wire should sit. Instead the cup volume should increase but the base should only increase slightly i.e. curve the sides of the cone to increase volume, making it more spheroid. Yes its 3-D engineering (and thinking) that’s one of the reasons I love designing and trying to closely fit garments to the wonderful curves all you lady’s have.
It’s a pity that the industry is more about profit, banging out ill fitting bras cut from 30 - 40 year old patterns (and ideas) than updating the size / shape by doing some research!

To dzynurbrian,
Well done, another person who is “thinking on their feet”. When I started writing the articles I did not want to just hand people everything on a plate. I could have just put the complete patterns on the website, told you to print them off full size and get to on with the sawing. I want people to enjoy the feeling of discovery as they work things out, I get such an amazing “buzz” when I see a garment that I have designed and pattern drafted fitting the model / client really well.
You must upload some pics of your garments, I have put up some pics and their patterns of “Bifurcated foundation garments” (garments with a crutch) for you to get some more ideas and will try to go over them in some articles in the near future.

To nilanga,
“why wire pull out to 1.5 what reason is”
We pull out (spring) the wires so that the wire will fit against the breast root, the point at which the breast joins the chest. When the bra is worn, the “pull” from the stretch wings should pull open the wire and hold it to the breast root. So we draft the bra pattern with the wire pulled out by 1.5cm, except when we are going to use stretch fabrics for the “cradle” of the bra.
Have a look at the article on bra theory “It’s all done with levers and fulcrums”.

Corset Hugs.
Mark.

There are a couple tricks for getting your seams to match up.

First, as you're drafting, you're not really guaranteed that anything will line up perfectly. You have to 'true' your seams by starting from a known match point (like the bust point on a bra, or the waist on a corset) and 'walk' the seams along each other - I usually prefer to do it with a light box or with my pattern on slightly transparent paper so I can see both lines at once, and I just start from my match point and move one piece over the other so the seam lines continuously line up. Usually that requires matching one several-inch section, putting my finger or a pin at the last matching point, and rotating around that fixed point until the next length matches up. You may well find that one of the pieces is longer than the other! Just pick one edge to be 'right' and make the other one match it. Fade the change out over an inch or so along the perpendicular edge of the piece.

Second, depending on your fabric, your sewing machine might be stretching one piece and shrinking the other. The feed dogs are always shoving the lower fabric towards the stitched seam, while the presser foot is dragging the top fabric away from the stitched seam. That can easily create a mismatch, even in fabrics that aren't supposed to be stretch. There's typically an adjustment on your machine that allows you to lower the pressure the foot is exerting. Basting also really helps with this (I'm working on a beautiful wool coat right now that just loves to crawl in every different direction. Everything gets basted. Sometimes, it gets basted twice) - it doesn't have to be especially neat or nice, it just has to hold things together.

(Note: that can actually work to your advantage. If you're sewing a seam where one half has been eased into the other, put the eased side down and the short side up. The feed dogs will really help ease the long side in smoothly.)


I'm glad you had success with some of your changes! That sounds like a lot of progress.

Okay, here is what I learned today:

Lowering the neck hem of the cup made a huge difference. No quadraboob. The side-spillage problem is also resolved. The profile is still not right for me. I'm going to try making the bottom pieces taller and the top piece shallower, or maybe

Lots of problems solved today, but new problems encountered. My patterns aren't right -- they look good on paper, they measure correctly, but when I sew the pieces together, the ends don't match up.

I need to learn to mark my pattern pieces better -- I sewed a lot of stuff on upside or backwards. I also made the mistake of sewing today's sample in a thin muslin, which was hard to work with on such narrow seam allowances. And my craftsmanship is truly horrible. I'm new sewer, so I forgive myself that, but it's frustrating nonetheless. I have some beautiful fabrics and trims put aside for when I'm confident that I can turn out a wearable bra, and it seems like they're going to collect dust for a while before I can put them to use.

All in all, I'd say today was productive.

Let us know how it goes!