This is pair of knickers number five. This time I started with Kwik Sew 2100, the most striking aspect of which was the ridiculous width of the gusset, especially as the sizes increase. I modified that part of the pattern to make more anatomical sense, and I was impressed by the instructions for putting together the lined gusset. It’s a bit fiddly but you end up with no raw edges on the inside, which makes these knickers very comfortable to wear.
I didn’t like the way that the original knickers were so puffy, so I decided to combine a stretch and a woven fabric to try and make them a bit flatter. They are more streamlined than they look in the picture (the mannequin’s so small I can’t stretch them right out), but they’re still not how I want them. I really need to buy a lingerie-drafting book, so I can work out how to do this properly.
I’m trying really hard to avoid using entirely stretch fabrics because there’s so much more interesting variety in wovens, but I’ll have to get the pattern absolutely right if this is going to work. These need the print panels to be smaller and the jersey panels to be bigger, to allow more stretch around the legs.
I also tried two different ways of applying the elastic – the waist has the elastic turned to the inside, and around the legs it’s on the outside. Each method is a two-step process, so there’s no time-saving in doing it one way over the other, but I think aesthetically I prefer the elastic on the outside, which I didn’t expect. Maybe because it looks more like something you’d buy from a shop, which is what I usually try to avoid.
[Later…]
In fact, I liked the elastic on the outside so much that I trimmed off the waist elastic and sewed it again to match the legs. Much better.