Tag: knickers!

Selfish Sewing

Sew-Knit-N-Stretch 206, 1969

I work on alternate Mondays, so the two I’m at home have been officially designated “Selfish Sewing” days. Days when I can try out new patterns and work on my own wardrobe, without worrying about whether I should be sewing for the Eternal Magpie shop.

My Panty Girdle (with Crotch Piece) pattern arrived at the weekend, so that was the ideal candidate for my first day of Selfish Sewing!

Sew Knit N Stretch 206

I wasn’t sure what size to make (there are no measurements given anywhere on the pattern!), so I decided to go with XL, which is usually around a vintage size 18. As you can see, the pattern’s nested really nicely, so I can still make other sizes if I need to. As it turns out, in the fabric I’ve chosen (which is just a printed jersey t-shirting), the size XL was almost perfect! The only thing I need to change on the next version is to make a small sway back adjustment, by taking an inch or so out of the centre back seam at the top. Excellent!

I left out the suspender attachments on this first try, mainly because the fabric is nowhere near strong enough to hold them up. If I do decide to make a power mesh version for wearing with stockings, I think I’d probably need to cut a size smaller, to make them more like a proper “control” garment. As it is, they fit really nicely in jersey, are very comfortable, and I think this first pair will make quite serviceable summer pyjamas.

Sew Knit N Stretch 206

The cotton jersey t-shirting was a piece I had left over in the stash, as was the little lace panel. As you can see, these shorts aren’t going to win any prizes for glamour or beauty, but they make a fine wearable muslin, which was the point of the exercise. Before I make more, I need to acquire two things – some stretch lace for the legs, to stop them from riding up, and some stronger elastic for the waistband. The piece I used is nice and soft, but it lacks recovery – when I stretched it out to stitch it into place, it didn’t stretch back as far as it should have done, which could be a problem once they’ve been through the wash a few times!

The instructions for these were more comprehensive than those for the bra slip, and they had lovely little step-by-step illustrations. The only one that was a little bit tricky to understand was the diagram for the waistband elastic – it was too small to really see what was going on, and I think if you didn’t have experience of applying lingerie elastic, you could get yourself into a bit of a muddle. I’m particularly glad that my sewing machine has both a triple straight stitch and a triple zigzag – those are absolutely invaluable for sewing strong stretch seams. The triple zigzag also makes the top stitching look very professional, although all this triple stitching does use up an awful lot of thread. Two complete bobbins, for a garment that only takes half a metre of fabric!

I think the vintage-inspired wardrobe is making good progress – I just need to make a few more of everything now!

Ghostly pants…

Ghostly pants...

Here I am, showing my underwear to the internet again. Please excuse the glimpse of my horrid garden beyond, I’m far more embarrassed about you seeing that than I am about showing you my knickers!

These started off life as a teddy, but I made a mistake while I was applying the elastic to the top. It didn’t fit right, and the straps kept falling off my shoulders, so I decided to take the scissors to it and try again. This is the result – a pair of french knickers in lovely soft bamboo fabric.

The centre front and back are finished with french seams, but I got a bit lazy at the side seams and just overlocked them. The legs are lazier still – just a lettuce hem run straight through the overlocker.

I wanted to use a soft, wide elastic as I thought that would be more comfortable than a narrow lingerie elastic that might dig in. I deliberately didn’t cut them on the bias, mainly because I didn’t have enough fabric to do that when I was cutting an entire teddy, and also because the fabric has such good drape that I didn’t think it was necessary. I may change my mind as I wear these, but they’re so soft that I think they’ll be fine.

Now all that remains is to wear and wash them a few times, and see how they cope with actually being worn. If they’re as comfortable as they look, I can foresee plenty more pairs of little bamboo shorts in my future wardrobe!

What’s with all the underwear?

I was chatting to a friend who reads my blog posts when they pop up on Facebook, and he wanted to know why I’d been making such a lot of underwear recently.

There are two reasons, really. When my latest work contract came to an end, I thought that making simple little knickers would be a good way of using up some of the smaller pieces in my fabric stash. This has turned out to be far more complicated than I’d thought (don’t things always?) because of my apparent inability to draft a knicker pattern that I actually like. Once I’ve got that part sorted out I’ll be good to go, but there’s going to be a lot of trial and error along the way.

This ties neatly into the other reason I wanted to make my own underwear – I can’t find anything that fits. In my goth clubbing days I used to wear corsets, but because I’m so short-waisted they didn’t fit properly. So I decided to make my own. The same goes for bras – despite being allegedly an “industry standard” size, it’s painfully apparent that there’s no such thing. I don’t think I’ve ever worn a bra that’s actually fitted me well and been comfortable.

But, despite my overwhelming desire to be comfortable, I don’t want to head into my forties in boring old underwear! And when I went window-shopping online to see what else was out there, I discovered that most people’s idea of glamorous underwear is either horrid thongs and scratchy lace, or vintage-inspired pieces based on shapewear. And to be honest, I’m not really interested in being squished into someone else’s idea of a mythical “ideal” shape – I’d much rather wear something that fits the shape I actually happen to be.

So, I’m trying to design some underwear that fills a few important criteria:

  • MUST be comfortable!
  • Preferably made from a natural fibre
  • Pretty and luxurious without being scratchy or squashy
  • Can be worn everyday, rather than saved for “best”

I’m nowhere near there yet, but that’s what I’m working on, and why!

Cupcake Knickers

Cupcake shorts

I thought these might be an improvement on the teeny-tiny strawberry shorts, but they’re not.

They’re bunchy between the legs, the satin bias tape is stiff and horrible, and the elastic’s all rolled up inside the casing. Very disappointing. I was hoping that these would work in the organic cottons, which are a similar weight to quilting cotton, but now I’m not sure.

However, I remain hopeful that if I actually decide to be brave enough to try these out in a lighter fabric, I should get a better impression of what they’re actually going to be like. Next time I might add a seam down the front and back, so I can cut them on the bias. I think that would look pretty in a nice washed silk dupion.

I definitely want to make these from woven fabrics, and I really want them to be floaty and pretty, not stiff like cotton boxer shorts. What I really want is to make them out of silk, but because silk is expensive I have a mental block about using it to make prototype garments, many of which are going to be unwearable.

Thankfully a friend of a friend gave us the name of a shop in London that sells silks from £2.50 a metre – if you don’t mind buying ten metres at a time. So even after you add in the cost of getting to London, that’s still most definitely a bargain!

I think it might be time to splash out on some more appropriate fabric, so that I can make as many prototypes as I need to without worrying about the cost.

Strawberry Shorts

Strawberry knickers

I’m afraid it’s all underwear around here at the moment! I’m in the middle of working on a couple of larger projects (an Edwardian-ish blouse and the prototype shoes), so these are little things than I can make when I don’t have time to get stuck in to something else.

These are made from the same block as the last pair, with a few alterations to the pattern. I slashed the front and back pieces from waist to hem, and spread the sections apart by an inch at each slash. This gave them a lot more volume at the leg, for a more skirt-like feel.

Once again the fabric’s a bit stiff, especially with the bound edges, and the waist is a little bit low, especially at the back. But they’re very comfortable under jeans, despite the width in the leg, so I want to use this pattern to make a silky pair and see how they come out.

More Prototype Pants

Skulls & roses knicker-shorts

I made these over the weekend, despite the best efforts of my sewing machine and overlocker. I don’t know why both of my machines are still playing up, but it’s driving me mad. The top thread keeps snapping on the overlocker every time I come to sew across a seam, and my ordinary machine has taken an exception to sewing elastic. It doesn’t want to feed evenly, which makes the stitching look terrible.

Anyway. I drafted the pattern as per the instructions in the book, and then I sewed the knickers, and then I tried them on, and now I know what I want to change before I make the next pair. Which is almost everything. Mostly to get around the problems of my machinery, rather than anything much to do with the knickers themselves.

They have elastic around the waist but not around the legs, because I wanted something that was in between ordinary pants and french knickers. Now I can’t decide whether I actually like them or not, because they’re neither one thing nor the other.

I might have to wear them a few times and see how they go.

New Knickers

Silk knickers

Remember the black silk knickers I made back in January? Well, they were gratefully received, but unfortunately they turned out not to fit terribly well. So, despite the best efforts of both my sewing machine and my overlocker (which I think are both overdue for a service), I made another pair.

I made some changes to the pattern to make them slightly deeper at the sides, and also to allow more room at the front. As you can probably tell from the mannequin, yes, they’re for a man. Hopefully this pair will actually fit!

Prototype Pants

Prototype Pants

Today I have been mostly trying to remember my technical drawing lessons, and drafting a pattern for french knickers. This pair are made from spotty jersey (t-shirt weight), with frilly legs and an elasticated waist.

They’re quite high-waisted, they should come up to your bellybutton, pretty much. They’re designed to be a close fit to the body, as they’re in a stretchy fabric. They have a small lined gusset, so you don’t get lots of seams bunching up underneath.

Because of Complicated Technical Reasons (also known as I Can’t Do Maths) they’ve come out a bit big for me, so I need to re-draft the pattern and try again.

In the meantime this pair have been relocated to a good home, where they have been described as “a perfect fit and AWESOME!!!”, which is always good to hear!

Skull & Rose Print Knickers

Red and black skull print knickers

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.

Koi Carp Knickers

Koi Knickers

From Cloth Magazine again. These are made from a lightweight printed cotton, leftovers from a skirt and a corset.

This time I experimented with applying the elastic in a different way. First I stitched it to the outside of the knickers, and then turned the elastic to the inside and used a three-step zig-zag stitch to finish it off. I also modified the pattern slightly, cutting in in two at the crotch and adding a seam allowance. This allowed me to separate the front and back, so that I could use this directional print without any of the fish being upside down.

I’m still not totally convinced that I like the style of these knickers. However, I can confirm that they’re really comfortable to wear, and they’ve survived the washing machine – so that’s a plus!