Tag: lingerie

Sew, Knit N Stretch

1960s Sew Knit N Stretch 228

I’ve been collecting these Sew-Knit-N-Stretch (the precursor to Kwik Sew) patterns for about a year. These particular designs date from 1969 and 1970, so I can’t really think of them as being “vintage” just yet. Okay, yes, they’re from before I was born, but only by three or four years. And that’s NOT OLD. Definitely not.

The peculiar thing about these patterns is that they come without any kind of size reference whatsoever. Yes, they say “S-M-L-XL’ on the front, but there is absolutely no indication, anywhere, as to what those sizes might mean. Not on the envelope, not in the instructions, not on the pattern pieces. Not anywhere.

Sew-Knit-N-Stretch

I made an XL in this one, a complete guess, and thankfully it turned out quite well. Okay, they have been relegated to pyjamas, but I need to do a bit of fabric thinking before I make another pair. The pattern calls for power net (as they’re supposed to be a “control” garment), I went for cotton jersey… but I think perhaps some kind of sportswear fabric might turn out to be a good in-between answer.

Sew-Knit-N-Stretch

You saw these as part of Me-Made May – and yes, they’re now pyjamas too. I made a size XL, thinking they’d be nice and comfy, and I think they will be in a woven fabric. In a knit though, I can definitely go down to a size L without any trouble at all.

Sew-Knit-N-Stretch

This pair I haven’t made yet, but I think I’m going to start by tracing off the size L this time, and hoping that the sizing is the same as for the other patterns!

These, and the ones above, are designed for nylon tricot. Personally I’m not a huge fan of nylon – it creates static electricity, it clings to your legs, and it’s hot and sticky in the summer. Hot and sticky is precisely what I’m trying to avoid by making this type of underwear, so I think a different fabric choice is going to be required. It needs to be something slippery, so that cotton dresses move nicely over the top, but not something that’s going to be hot or static or climb up your legs in an annoying way.

I think I need to stalk Scruffy Badger’s blog – she makes some lovely running shorts in sportswear and performance fabrics, so I think there might be inspiration to be had over there!

Sew-Knit-N-Stretch

This one is the weirdest of all, in that it turned out to (mostly) fit first time! I made a 36C, assuming it would be too big, and I could then alter it down to fit. In an off-the-shelf bra I wear a 36A, or a 34B, or a 32D, depending on what mood the manufacturer was in on the day they decided to pluck the imaginary sizes out of thin air. Surprisingly the 36C turned out to be almost spot on… although the more I wear the slip, the more I wonder whether I should try and find a copy in a 38 to see whether that would fit even better.

Most UK bras are sized using the frankly bizarre “+4” system – you measure around your ribcage to find your underbust measurement, you add four inches to this measurement for no readily apparent reason (three inches if it’s an odd number, obviously), and that’s your bra size. You then measure around the fullest part of your bust, and work out the difference between the under bust and over bust measurements to determine which cup size you need. Then you go to a shop, take every bra in that size into a changing room, and weep gently as not a single one of them turns out to fit you, and they’re all wrong in a different way. Or is that just me?

Anyway, I wonder whether, being a dressmaking pattern, this bra slip is actually given as a dress size, rather than a bra size. Dress patterns are sized according to your over bust measurement, and most of the vintage patterns I buy are a size 38 or 39″ bust. (This could be anything from a size 14 to a size 20½, depending on which decade the pattern is from.)

Actually, a quick search has turned out to reveal that the bra slip is only available up to a size 36, but what looks like the identical bra pattern without the slip part is available in a 38. Perhaps I can cobble the two together and see what happens.

Back again.

 

Hello! I seem to be getting into a very lazy habit of only updating the blog about once a fortnight. My excuses are that it’s too frustrating trying to post using the iPad, and it’s so much easier to update Instagram and Facebook. Probably best to follow me there, if you feel like keeping up with me on a more regular basis.

Here you can see me in a fantastically stereotypical Instagram shot – staring whimsically into space as I contemplate how I’m going to get out of this dress when I haven’t added the front placket yet.

I was originally going to make a dress, then I changed my mind and decided to make a shirt. Thanks to a slight maths error (okay, the fact that I didn’t measure my hips properly) the shirt didn’t fit, so I decided to chop off the bottom eight inches and make it into a dress after all. But because I was cobbling together two patterns, I hadn’t quite worked out how I was going to get in and out of the thing. My task for today is to cut into the skirt and add a placket, so I’ve got room for buttons below the waist.

I have quite a few buttonholes in my future – this petticoat needs eight of them. (I just need to find eight matching lingerie buttons from my stash.) The pattern is Butterick 3263, and I made the slip to test the fit of the bodice before I embark on the combinations. Just as well I did, as the petticoat didn’t fit me at all! I took in two inches at the centre back bodice, half an inch at each side, an inch out of each shoulder, and added a dart at the centre back skirt to accommodate my sway back. I’m now slightly paranoid that I’ve made it too tight, but I won’t find out until the buttons are in place. (Cue the traditional cursing of my sewing machine that refuses to make buttonholes unless I’m standing in the sewing machine shop complaining to Sue about it – when of course it makes them perfectly. Git.)

In an attempt to be more organised, and to try and keep both my pattern and fabric stashes under control, I’ve started work on a new system. I’ve printed out a little picture and the fabric details for each of the patterns I sew most often, and glued them down to the pages in a small Filofax that was sitting empty in a drawer. I plan to add swatches for each garment as I make them, so that I can see what I’ve got already and where any gaps might be. The second section will be swatches cut from my fabric stash, so that when I go fabric shopping I can see what I’ve got at home, and make sure I’m not duplicating things. This will also allow me to match up the patterns with the swatches, and hopefully shrink the stash a little bit by actually sewing something from it!

Section three, which you can see poking out on the right, is swatches from clothes that are already in my wardrobe. (These were cut from inexplicable horizontal loops on the back of my jeans.) Having these with me will mean that I can buy fabric (or wool) to match clothes that I have already, thereby creating Actual Outfits rather than a wardrobe full of lovely clothes that bear no relation to one another. (Currently I have nine pairs of smart trousers, and no tops at all to go with them. I’m very bored with black t-shirts already.) I’m also contemplating knitting tiny swatches to match my cardigans, though I think that might be a step too far into madness. Perhaps just sticking in a few strands of yarn would do just as well.

Speaking of madness… the other day I made this little doll face. I found her a bit fiddly (hence the slightly squiffy eyes!), so I enlarged the pattern, thinking I’d try making a doll on a slightly larger scale. Except that when I really looked at the photocopied pieces, I realised that “slightly larger” is actually going to turn out about three feet tall! Do I really want to make a doll at that kind of size? Well, I’ve got a big enough piece of felt, so why not?! We’ll see how long it takes for me to get bored of stuffing all the pieces. (I predict: Not Very.)

In Other News… 

I’ve been clearing out my pattern stash into the Etsy shop.
There are a few vintage patterns that turned out not to fit me, a few that I bought and then changed my mind about, and a few that are cut out to sizes that I now can’t fit into. More to come over the next week or so.

My zipped pouches were reviewed over at Blonde Ambition.
Thank you Katie, for the lovely review!

The Vintage Haberdashery Mystery Boxes have disappeared from Etsy…
…but I do still have one left. Let me know if you’d like it, and I can pop the listing back up just for you. Otherwise it’ll sit on my shelf feeling lonely, until I can find a good home for it.

And now? Buttonholes. Lots of buttonholes.

(And hoping that it doesn’t rain on the four loads of washing currently drying in the garden, because I’ve got no room for all that laundry in the house if the weather decides to chuck it down!)

Improving on Me-Made May

28/5/14

You may have spotted that I didn’t post very many photos from my Me-Made May escapades. This is partly because I mostly look like some kind of strange triangular bag lady (I like layers, and most of my clothes are comfortable-shaped), and partly because it turns out that I only wear about four outfits, over and over again, with very minor variations. How boring!

28/5/14

Towards the end of the month I made a last-ditch effort to wear some of the smarter clothes in my wardrobe, only to discover that when I put them on… well, suddenly they’re not so smart any more. This dress is now very firmly on the “waiting to be chopped up and turned into something that doesn’t look like a giant floral sack” pile. There’s just no point in wasting time and fabric making clothes that require waist shaping in order to look nice, when waist shaping isn’t something that I actually have myself. Although, having said that, my other vintage dress (also made from an Advance size 18½ pattern without alterations) fitted really well and looked lovely!

17/5/14

See? I still don’t have a waist, but the dress looks smart, not like a huge great cushion’s attacked me while I wasn’t looking. I think this is partly down to the fact that this dress has a smooth skirt rather than miles of pleats. (Also: not a selfie, vintage-style foundation garments, not layered with t-shirts and bloomers and giant boots on account of it being freezing at work.)

Lace crop top

Sadly, even if I did have the budget to wear lovely things from Kiss Me Deadly every day, the fibromyalgia simply wouldn’t allow it. But, the whole Me-Made May experiment did reveal that I am very much lacking in the Me-Made underwear department – despite the fact that I spent plenty of time and money on the London College of Fashion’s Structured Lingerie course back in 2011. I bought this lace when I came back, in a fit of enthusiasm, and it’s been untouched in a box ever since, along with a metre and a half of pink, and four metres of a prettier-than-it-sounds grey. This particular lingerie is about as unstructured as you can get (no wires, no fastenings, nothing), but I used a lot of the skills I learned on the course to make it. The pattern itself is from Sewing Lingerie, a Singer reference book, where it’s described as a “sleep bra”.

The wide stretch lace that I used to make this is actually really affordable, and comes in lots of different colours and patterns. If this one (and the pink one I’ve just finished, and the two or three grey ones I’m going to make next) turn out to be comfortable, I can feel a drawer full of these coming on before Me-Made May next year!

Kiss Me Deadly – Paradise Girdle


Photo © Kiss Me Deadly

A few weeks ago, one of these turned up in the post. No, not a lovely blonde lady with a pointy dagger, but a Kiss Me Deadly Paradise Longline Girdle.

Given that during my recent wardrobe purge I threw out every single piece of uncomfortable lingerie I owned (which to Paul’s dismay was nearly all of it), this might seem like a bit of a bonkers purchase. And it is, a little bit. But in its favour, it’s stretchy, it doesn’t dig in anywhere, and best of all – you can colour it in.


Photo © Kiss Me Deadly

Yes, you read that correctly. The design itself is black and white, but every Paradise girdle is supplied with a set of paints and a brush, so you can paint your own. I chose the pearlescent paints, because I like the subtle effect in this picture, but you can also choose from sparkly, glittery, or glow in the dark! Kiss Me Deadly are awarding prizes for pictures of the finished result, so I’d probably better get a move on and colour mine in!

I do need to make a small alteration to mine first though. Despite the advice on the KMD website to order this particular garment by your waist size rather than your hip measurement, I went the other way. This means it’s a little bit too big for me at the top, but I’m glad I went for the larger size otherwise I think it would have been too constricting for me at the bottom. Please note – my body is a very odd shape, thanks to 20 years of IBS and three lots of abdominal surgery, so if you’re buying one of these I would still recommend following the fitting advice on the website! However, I have the technology to take in the side seams at the waist without disrupting the technical construction of the girdle, so I’m going to do that before I get the paints out.


Photo © Marks and Spencer

Recently, Catherine wrote an article for The Lingerie Addict about What It’s Like to be a Woman with a Disability in the Lingerie Industry. This was particularly well timed for me to read, having just thrown out all my bras and replaced them with distinctly un-glamorous (but tolerably comfortable) brightly-coloured cotton crop tops from M&S. (Yes, they’re for children. Yes, that makes me feel weird.) Some of my health issues are different from Catherine’s, some of them are similar. And let’s just say that the multiple mirrors in a Marks & Spencer changing room do very little for the self-esteem of a woman who’s almost forty, overweight, in constant pain, and trying on children’s underwear as something of a last resort. That was not the most enjoyable morning I’ve ever had.

But, I did realise that if these crop tops are comfortable enough, then I could probably get away with one of Kiss Me Deadly’s more unstructured bras, like the Van Doren. (I love the style of the Fifi, but just looking at that narrow band makes my ribs hurt!) If this is a picture of the back of the Van Doren bralet (which I think it is), that nice deep strap and wide elastic combination looks very promising indeed.

First things first though – time to make that alteration to the waist of the Paradise girdle, and then get the paints out! Honestly, clothes you can colour in? Best. Idea. EVER.

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!