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FUZZY GALORE |
Finished my Garment Remake project! I signed up for this on a lark, having gotten email from the Church of Crafts about it. Fabric and recycling, what could be more fun together? I have participated in a number of quilt exchange projects in the early days of the net, and have acquired a philosophical attitude toward this sort of thing: sometimes you get back works of genius, sometimes you get a dog, you really need to practice Zen detachment and concentrate on having a good time with your end of it.
I figured the worst that'd happen would be a pleasant afternoon in thrift shops looking for a suitable contribution. I finally found something that fit me: a simple t-shirt, which would have been wearable on its own, just a bit dull. Its main feature was the metallic copper fabric, right up my alley. I didn't put any restrictions on what could be made with it, but did warn my anonymous friend that it barely fit, so she wouldn't make it smaller...
Meanwhile we were allowed to pick out what we wanted to work on,
which was a great feature. I got this neo-chinese brocade coat,
and I must confess that my primary motivation was that there
would be lots of extra fabric to play with if I cut it into
a more wearable jacket. It's not bad really, just dull.
Colors for a blond. Nothing too interesting going... which is
a good thing I guess if you want to use your own imagination :-).
OK, you must forgive the quality of the photography here,
and check the real website when it goes up with the professional
version. My general idea was to transform this
potato-bag shape, too long for general wear, into a little 40s style
swing jacket. So I hacked the bottom off, and used one of
the fronts to inset a gore into the middle of the back.
Only this is really awful material, acetate or something,
and it's lined with even more slithery sleazy stuff, linings being my
bete noire on top of it. The finished product doesn't drape very wonderfully,
but the tip of the gore had some seriously gnarly stuff going on,
which showed all the more because of the shiny fabric.
I used an extra frog at the strategic point, which I think
works well, both as a disguise and as a design feature. I hate
clothes where nothing's going on in the back, and this coat
was a poster child for needing back attention.
My most urgent thought was to inject some color into the thing.
I've very much enjoyed the recent trend of mixing brocades with fur,
and while I didn't want to slavishly imitate it I wanted
to stick to that idea of lavish texture contrast.
I hit one of those wonderful semi-annual sales at my beloved
Far Out Fabrics,
and got some bright coral velvet which extended some of
the brocade colors, only 1/2 yard. I was feeling a bit down
about the fabric paint selection, out of the 50s dark turquoise
I had in mind, when Rose pointed out a better one: a pearlescent
aqua. So I made big pink velvet collar and cuffs, just
basically appliqueed them. Didn't interface the collar,
I wanted it loose and floppy, but I left in the previous
standing collar which I thought would provide just the right
amount of structure, basically be a collar stand, and
miraculously it worked. I also paid a lot of attention to making
the undercollar a bit smaller so the edges would roll under
out of sight. Then I dabbed the pearly turquoise
on the frogs to perk them up. I'd originally thought of replacing
them entirely, but didn't find any obvious buttons and ran out of energy
to bake good Fimo ones. And I now think that the
pink velvet should get star billing, too forward closures might have
detracted from the whole.
I also had fun with rubber stamps. I'd gotten a while back one of those
really big ones, a Chinese character which I think means 'long life' or
something equally bland,
and was itching to try it on something. First I embossed
the velvet, on one side of the collar and on the opposite cuff to
introduce a subtle bit of asymmetry into this boring setup (did that
before I put them together..). The collar one shows steam
hole imprints, and the cuff one is much fainter - eh. Probably only
I will ever detect the faults, and I like the effect very much.
Then I took out the pearlescent paint and stamped a half-dozen
more on the lining, totally a success this time. I tried
hard to curb my innate tendency to go paint-happy, using a sponge
to dab it on the stamp, and that worked pretty well. I had only
marginally enough time to dry it properly, and blew-dried it all
hotly in addition to the recommended fixing by ironing - I didn't think
the iron would do much good in the crevices of the frogs for instance.
But the pearlescence of the paint was the perfect complement to the shiny fabric.
So what do we have here? A boring object with a more wearable shape, more color, something to look at in the back, and a nice surprise on the inside. Are we pleased? YES! Did we have a good time? Yes again:-)!
I needed to get more into the groove of sewing. To warm up,
I grabbed some flannel that was cluttering the 'do it yesterday!'
shelf, and whipped out some pajamas.
Aaah. Love those easy projects... And isn't satisfying when
you clear up more space because the fabric is fatter? Much
as you might enjoy wearing the silk shirt, there's nothing
like getting a sweatshirt's worth of cleared up space,
it's one of the main joys of winter sewing.
Pickings were slim in flannel this year, one of our favorite haunts having unaccountably decided that we'd like to lounge in solids. But I'd been accumulating a few candidates all the same. Rose got the lipstick cowgirls and cactus on the lovely buttery yellow, which made her laugh and she got into them immediately. I got another rev of the pink poodles - my current one, on white background, is already looking a little tired because it's such a favorite. And I branched out into the sleeping-bag lining genre, complete with bears, beavers and deer. We're feeling very cosy.
Well, that was interesting. We went to a sprang workshop taught for
our weaving guild
by one of the long-time great weavers,
Stephenie Gaustad.
I'd read about sprang before, particularly in Mary Meigs Atwater's
"Byways in Handweaving". I knew it was the technique by which
those great stretchy central-american hammocks are made, and which
goes back thousands of years.
But I was still totally flumoxed about how to really go about it...
So it is fairly simple, once you see it done. Stephenie of course displayed many lovely samples, and her fingers flew like she was playing the piano. The idea is that you use a sketchy frame (apparently, 3 sticks in the ground can do), wrap the warp loosely around strings stretched across it, and use your fingers to twine a whole fabric. There is no weft, which is one of the puzzles. And it's one of those Moebius-like things where you're actually weaving both ends of the fabric at once, and you end in the middle. Apparently, some complex objects were proved to be sprang when someone found a symmetrical mistake on both halves, something which I came to demonstrate with a vengeance :-).
It turns out that there's an important bit to the directions which is always glossed over: use a guide string. It keeps the loops in control while you weave, and make mistakes, and it allows you to get back to the last row without fuss. I still need to inspect the fabric after each row, and make sure I don't have to back up more than a single row, because I didn't quite get the hang of backing up more. I do recall Stephenie saying something about 'following the diagonal', if that helps you. I took out the first row 8 times, and many other rows besides, so I love that guide string, and I had to switch projects entirely when my first one was lost. The problem is that the whole thing unwinds in a blink if you don't finish it formally and secure the loops, it's like Knitting From Hell. Since I was using Mikado ribbon, a slick cotton/rayon tape, it fell apart faster than I could blink when I lost my string.
My main problem with this otherwise fascinating technique was that I wasn't sure what to make. It makes an extremely stretchy fabric, which is very interesting and I'm sure has many applications. The classic thing it's used for is bags, but I couldn't at the moment work up enthusiasm for a bag with holes. Which is perfectly unfair, because I liked a lot of Stephenie's bags, especially drooled over a hand-spun linen one whose thick-and-thin yarn made beautiful quasi-Japanese watery patterns. Yumm! Holds her small weaving tools, except it only holds them because of the cardboard roll inside. I'll definitely need something along these lines for the next time I go to a French market, that'd be the obvious.
But anyway, all I could come up with was to use wool so it wouldn't unravel so fast, and to make a hat. This would have worked better if I'd had any control over the size of any finished object :-). Also it took some imagination to make a square, even a very stretchy square, into a hat. I picked up the end loops with crochet, and made it too tight, for about 3 revs. Then I picked them up with knitting, and that worked better. I still did the ribbed band 4 more times, unable to get the size right, or even near right. Turns out that we'd gotten this nice foam head as a model, and I was trying things out on her. Bill, who has a lot of opera/theater experience, pointed out that those heads are meant to be used for wigs, and that they're usually 1-2" smaller than real heads. Duh!! So I put on my Halloween wig, and we were off.
I had grossly misjudged how much warp to put on, so I tried to keep it all from stretching right out the door by crocheting a thick, tight, center, several layers of it as it turns out. It ends up looking like a caterpillar crawling across my head. Good thing that yarn was green, eh? And I tried to go with this design feature by making that into a sort of diagonal part, knitting short rows into the ribbing to try to tilt the whole thing. Ahem. Well, at least it stays on my head now, and it does look different...
Managed to finish Rose's lace scarf before Valentine Day, and it looks very good. Except for catching on her usual necklace, which is a hardware failure more than a lace one... And except for the fact that she's now decided that orange is MY color, and she can't have it. Sheesh! Fortunately, she's got a jacket that's perfect with it, so she's been led to wear it a bit all the same.
I had a small sewing attack and tried again to finish something which
had been languishing in the sewing pile since summer.
This fabric was extremely cheap, something under $2/yard,
and I'm kicking myself for not getting more. It's 100% cotton,
it's extremely soft, the print is kind of camp in a French way.
Alas, the pattern... J'accuse Burda 8361.
I meant this as a proto-muslin that I could
use as a yoga top, since I'm rather short of these. I have
a floor rag.
So let me see if I can summarize. One minor complaint is that there is a straight seam across the back waist, with no function whatsoever. Silly, as it'd have been easy to work in a bit of a curve and get virtual darts to make it fit better. Sillier as it'd have been easy for me to skip it entirely and leave the large print intact. Sigh. I did curve it in, up to about 1/2" in the center back, and like the shape better, although I'm ignoring the fact that the mid-back is probably noticeably too short now.
What really bites is the front. First, the neck goes out about an inch too much on each side, a common problem in Burda patterns and one that I should have thought to check. But the rest of the front is beyond help. I did try to paper-check it before cutting, believe it or not. Which is why I raised the v-neck by 2" to start. I'm not against a bit of decollete in principle, but too much in yoga class is perhaps a bit distracting, those forward bends could get very forward indeed. Those of you who've been unfortunate enough to practice near one of the many guys who think that running shorts are appropriate yoga attire will know what I mean. But in any case, I think of a neckline as something that should still cover the bra in general, and in this case we were plunging merrily down, way past it.
One could of course wear a contrasting color t-shirt underneath to solve the problem and look even better. Alas, yoga is sweaty enough (even the traditional slow-poke kind that I prefer) that I don't need another mandatory underlayer. And none of my nicer bras would remotely go with this shirt anyway, although the black and white polka dots would be kind of punk... So I grabbed it in a huff and just ran the seam up another 2". Bad idea! I now have a decent neckline, and a big pooch right on the stomach. Enough of a pooch to suggest that I might have had a 3rd (droopy) central breast at some point. And one that can't be undone because I serged and therefore trimmed it. Eeck.
And while I'm complaining, let me also add that the stomach pooch is even more noticeable because it's the only ease on the thing. Unless I've gotten enormously fatter since last summer the sizing is very severe on this 'fitted' thing, I'm like a little sausage in it. So much for hopes of a decent yoga shirt, I may as well show them my underwear directly.
I tried all kinds of things in front of the mirror. Did I mention that's it's also too long? Just taking 2" off each shoulder would work somewhat (the arms are too wide by about that much anyway), but then the under-bust seam would have to go down the same 2", it's actually well-placed on the sides as is. I think if I were to try again I'd bring the point up 4" on the lower part, and just prolong the top half's curve which is nicely shaped. Then I'd get the original point on the neckline and avoid the ankward center seam.
Is it entirely me, or did Burda fail me miserably through this whole process? I don't appreciate a pattern I have to redraft entirely, I'd rather have the practice doing it from a photo, for free. Harumph. It was never like that when the old lady was running the show..
I'm what Judith McKenzie calls "lace-impaired".
A fine euphemism. Which means that I trip on the direction
of my yarn overs, can't see what I'm doing, understand the
principles in the vaguest way, can't rip at all without going
all the way, etc. What am I saying? I don't
even like lace :-). But we've got this new yarn,
Kid Merino which begs for laceyness,
and comes in the most luscious persimmon color.
I couldn't help myself.
So I grabbed a ball, doubled the thing because I can't see it at all otherwise :-), and tried several versions of the turkish stitch. Mmm. Took me several rippings to get the hang of it, the yarn is looking a bit peaked at the beginning, mohair isn't the best experimental medium for this. The simplest version works just as well as the more elaborate, so I'm going with that. And you know, it's growing on me... Actually growing too because it works up fast, when you use 10 ½, but also because now that I don't really rip it makes some sort of twisted sense. Let's see how long I last at this...
Correction! Seems that I totally blanked out the fact that the Interweave spiral scarf is shaped with short rows, and knitted width-wise. The horror, the horror! I obviously blocked that one out just from contemplating the process. Apparently there's a live beginner out there wandering around feeling very proud of themselves because they finished it as their first project. Sigh. Want to bet that beginner never knits again? My experience has been that traumatizing beginners with a too-complex project, even if by some fluke it gets finished, pretty much ensures dropping out, no matter what the medium.
So if you insist on knitting one of those spiral scarves, do yourself a favor: cast on something like 75 stitches, and double every row as you go (knit 1, increase 1), till you're sick of it. At least you won't get carpal tunnel problems turning every 3 stitches for thousands of rows. Although if you insist on doing it as prescribed, I'd recommend learning to knit backwards, ie from right to left. It's not that hard, and it makes things with very short rows much, much easier. Think entrelacs and dominos, heel triangles on socks etc. It's also good for things like intarsia in the round, argyle socks being a notorious example.
Meanwhile, I'm valliantly doing my bit to support Be Kind To Beginners
principles by posting the pattern to a "mink" collar we made
for Zoya's birthday. Only a month late in delivery so far :-).
What can I say? It took me much longer to work the long bits to
one side than to crochet the whole thing. I also feel ambiguous
because the button matches too well, and sort of disappears.
But I'm sure Zoya won't mind, apart from thinking we forgot about her...
We should also all be telling beginners that presents are only acceptable when they're surprises... No point in trying to reproduce the icky features of working life in one's relaxing hobbies, is there?
I got extraordinarily obstinate about this new scarf.
It's a much more sensible crochet version of the knit spiral scarf whose look
I liked, but that I coudn't endure even the thought of.
So I made it and ran out of yarn. No big deal. But then I decided
that there was no reason why it wouldn't work in a single ball.
Whipped out the calculator and cranked away, deciding that I clearly
needed to shorten it by 1/3 of the remaining part lacking a
3rd row (which is as long as both rows under it, right?).
Made it again, and with the short bits of Little Flower
it's a real bitch to rip.
Wrong again! By only 20cm, but still. So I made it
a 3rd time. Harumph. Success at last, but not happy success,
the repeats are forming a hairball that is kind of getting in
the way of the esthetically triumphant feeling..
Except that I do like the finished product very much, it's even better than I envisioned. A crochet version has a lot more body than the knit by definition, which is a very good thing in this case, squashed ruffles are pitiful. No doubt I'll forget the trauma in a short while. Now let me see, is there somewhere I could wear this that people would even notice and get me on another groove? Oh right, Stiches next weekend :-)...
Rose whipped out a couple of pairs of socks with her usual amazing speed.
This first has very nice soft colors, and features a spiral of purl
stitches that she improvised "just to keep herself awake". She
had qualms about doing any pattern at all on such a busy print, but
now agrees that it was worth it, the pattern does show.
This was from some Regia 'stretch' yarn, which looks great but
has really strange texture. There isn't much point in having
lots of softness on the feet, even pampered ones like mine
don't really feel that much. And some people go too far,
making socks from merino that lasts barely long enough for
the first round of compliments.
But these ones go really way off into pot-scrubbing territory.
I don't know what Regia was thinking of, but ball appeal is
just not there, and Rose complained about the feel through
the entire knitting process. However, the yarn was there, they're done,
and in fact they don't feel that bad on, even when going for a good long walk.
I just don't think we'll be getting any more of that yarn,
especially as I wonder how the stretch thing will affect durability
in the long run.
These ones came about because we were visiting Paula, having an orgy of
pattern adjusting, pant cutting etc, and Rose had forgotten to bring
knitting. Paula whipped a pair of balls out and told her to make
something :-). Since she has a nice collection of pattern by
Lucy Neatby,
another of those very inventive Canadian knitters, these are a
take-off on her bobbly socks. Loved the concept, but hate toe-up
construction, and why bother knitting in stripes when you can
start with some 'ringel' variety from Regia? We're not feeling
bad about Regia in general, just the stretch thing. Anyway,
Rose learned bobbles, and off she went. The stripes did work out
as well as if they were designed in. Aren't these totally adorable?
Made a couple scarves. It's the eternal quest for the more aggressively
hairy, there's no end to it. A couple years ago I was totally thrilled
with the arrival of Splash,
but now that there's Dragonfly...
The thrill from this 3-D stuff is addictive,
and still escalating as far as I'm concerned.
So this first one is a small takeoff on the
Crystal Palace
tomato
scarf.
An obvious one for me because of the orange/red combination,
so.. Lacroix. When I met Rose, she knew all about Lacroix
from Ab Fab, but she didn't quite catch he was a real designer.
We've over-compensated since :-). I substituted the really
red Fizz Stardust for the plain Fizz, on the basis of wanting more red,
and got sparkle with it. Not too much sparkle, even though I'm
not much of a metallic kind of girl, it kind of blends in,
compensates for the very matte Dragonfly, the texture's interesting
and it just works, I'm pleased with it.
And then there's The Next Spring Color, lavender (aka wisteria).
Here I wanted
the obvious painted iris Fizz,
and the only really hairy bit that worked
was the berry parfait Squiggle.
But the result was a bit too dark,
more frankly purple than lavender,
so I added the lavender Shimmer which also gives it a bit more
weight. I thought I wanted the weight for more drape,
but there was a drawback I didn't think
of - the weight stretches it, a lot. Enough that instead of the moderately
long and wider scarf I tried for I now have another long narrow one.
Oops. It works if I wear it doubled over, so French.
Both of these are surprisingly warm. I know about thickness and insulation abstractly, the old saw about how your sleeping bag would be just as warm filled with steel wool. But in this case, nothing but nylon fuzz seems to work just fine at keeping your neck warm. Something to remember. I made them lengthwise too, on 14" Daisy needles, and it seemed more pleasant than yards and yards of turning every 10 stitches, I could get used to this new method for me.
I am feeling a bit queasy about the lavender thing though. I remember my mother saying that retro fashion is fine as long as you're clearly too young to have worn it the first time around, on 2 counts: it just doesn't feel as exciting, and people might think you never stopped. Two definite possibilities in this case. It's weird because both Rose and I still have very fond warm feelings for the 70s, fiercely miss the politics in many occasions (especially in the past year...), but we also both have very ambiguous things going with purple. Plenty of my contemporaries are still running around in the very same old purple t-shirts, whether they're quilters or dolphin-loving lesbians. There is quite a contingent who're going to find themselves in an unaccustomed fashionable position this year.
It's ridiculous really, because it's only since we started Fuzzy that I even noticed or cared which colors are supposed to be in at all. Sewing my own stuff allowed me to be much more oblivious to fashion than even your ordinary geek would be, so you'd think I at least would be one of the worst offenders. But actually orange's been my favorite color for a long while, and I'm relieved that I don't have to import every bit of it from Europe any more, or dye my own. Possibly purple sets our teeth on edge because many of the die-hards who never let up on it did so because they aren't exactly the most flexible of the bunch... So Rose, who was rather rolling her eyes as I was working on it, was pleasantly surprised that she actually liked the result. She remarked that 'it looks better with black'. Don't know, maybe I spent more time than she did in Berkeley but it give me a strong whiff of witches :-). I'll have to try it with linen or something.
Last time we went down to Monterey, we dragged Zoya to Carmel to visit the shop of someone I was curious about - Loes Hense. She sells patterns, usually for nice simple clothes, and she has this live ready-to-wear shop, I wanted to see the clothes before I made up my mind to try any patterns. And in person, it's very good stuff. She uses very drapey fabrics, perhaps drapier than I'd normally go for, but the results are quite good, elegant without fuss. We got a really good shirt for Rose - cream wool jersey, very slightly fulled (enough not to need dry cleaning..), with great subtle shape from pin tucks. And I'm holding my breath for a retro jacket whose pattern is coming out early this winter, with pleats going into the back neck, that one looks really good on me. And her piazza jacket is very good too. I was looking at all this, and I found a review of the Portofino dress at patternreview.com which gushed about how well cut it is, how easy to make etc. So when I was looking for a pattern to make a velvet dress I naturally thought of it. Good cut is a rare quality these days, and it seemed worth checking out, and 'easy' is a magic word.
One doesn't want to rush into velvet though, since every stitch shows and ripping isn't an option. The sensible thing to do is to make a muslin, but I often try to make a muslin out of cheap material instead , so that I either get 2 good pieces of clothing out of the necessary process, or at worst I don't cry if I have one that should remain single. So, this is getting more and more embarrassing as I talk about it, but I had only one 4-yard piece of fabric, and it seemed like a good idea to finally use it. Unfortunately it's one of those pieces that's dated in the selvage, and the date on it was.. 1991. Even worse, I remembered that I had bought this at Far Out Fabrics while on a trip to CA from the East Coast, so it's not only nearly 15 years old but has followed me through 6000 miles, not to mention the 4 moves afterwards. Ahem. Well, I guess by some people's standards that makes it free, which certainely qualifies as muslin material. And by now it certainely looks vintage, I could have bought the thing in a thrift store and paid a fortune for it, right? It'll make a perfectly good summer dress, if I can keep myself from blabbing about the circumstances every time I have it on.
So anyway, here it is. You can't tell much with all those banana
leaves everywhere :-). But let me tell you, it's very well cut.
By that I mean not only that there are subtle curves everywhere that make
it fit better, but that there is very good use of the grain, which is
something that's not generally understood. The skirt drapes
perfectly because the straight of the grain is on the side hips,
where you don't really want to hug the lumps, while the bias
falls in even pleats at center. The waist comes together
much less emphatically than the picture shows, but with curves
that fall perfectly together. The v-neck has straight grain along
the center, so that it won't gape horribly like most of them do.
All this is subtle, but it makes a big difference, and
go find that even in a Vogue pattern for instance..
All my admiration for these subtleties didn't keep me from almost giving myself a heart attack. I finished putting it together late at night, pulled it on to La Mujer Pantera, and eeeck! There was this weird poof on the stomach, and some very strange stuff happening in the lower back. Now I know these are areas where I often need some work, but that much?!? I reeled right back into bed and pulled the covers over my head, feeling ill at the prospect. I had thought that something unfitted enough around the waist not to need a zipper would be fine, even if it was close enough otherwise not to look too baggy, had I finally gone so overboard with the chocolate that I had become only fit for those baggy flowery 50s housedresses that my sister and I make so much fun about? A vintage concierge in a velvet dress, that's what I could hope for? So much for realizing your early career aspirations. Had a flash of 3am insight. Got up and ripped, rotated the skirt 90o, and felt much better. Indeed, this was a demonstration of how a curve on the straight grain does not conform to what's under it :-). A bit overly graphic of a demonstration, perhaps, but all the same it drove the point home.
Now I did have to do a couple small alterations - it was helpful to meet Loes and see how she's shorter than me, and much thinner. But it was a piece of cake to add a bit of curve to the bust, and continue the hip curve just a bit to accomodate my bigger and lower butt, you can hardly tell there were any changes. I thought the sleeve length was a bit dumpy, and added 3" to make them 3/4 length instead of just above the elbow, shortening them would also work. I pondered and pondered, and stuck with only the back gore, feeling a bit weird about having a front one. I should mention that the same gore put into the straight grain in the first rev stuck out like a sore thumb, but when it's into the correct bias seam it melts in very nicely. Maybe I should think about a front one again, and not let myself be too influenced by the drawing.
In conlusion, if you can avoid my detour into grainy discoveries, and follow the directions, I highly recommend this one...
Christmas again, eeck! I was a total coward and let Rose go deal with her insane family all by herself, having had quite enough of dealing with my own in the past, thank you very much. While she got thoroughly rebuked about everything in her life and her very self, I wallowed on the couch and made a couple presents. I rationalized that I was still getting over my cold, not to mention the Christmas order rush. Much better.
Being in a hedonistic mood, I went back to a yarn combination
I'd loved before, the bulky Iceland
and the Whisper which is the
truffle of soft yarns, and gives a nice halo. Stuck to a simple
reversible rib so as
to minimize thinking. The first one, which I actually
finished in time to send with Rose, was this pastel one
for Mom. She's blond, she's a German old lady, she loves
pastels. This was ecru Iceland with soft blue Whisper.
Apparently, she liked it, so I didn't flunk entirely :-).
The next one was much more to my liking - claret Iceland and
orchid Whisper. Much better, eh? Love that texture...
I might have to do this one again for myself.
Rose meanwhile got a couple pairs of boxer shorts, the kind with 6" sexy Dale Evans girls on (one with motorcycles as well, just for good measure). Very cute. I used the Grande pattern from Elan that I discovered a few years ago - still the best with comfy back curves that keep them from riding up. I hadn't sewed in a while, it was a nice change of pace. And it helped that I cleared up the flood of the sweatshop so I could actually cut...
While I was on an underwear track, I pulled out not one but thREE bras with problems and tried some fixes. The good news is that I did manage to order some underwires that fit, and I restored the damage inflicted by brutal washing machines. After a couple hours of wearing one of them, I even solved the mystery of how the chaneling could be empty with no visible means of exit for the broken underwire, ouch!
I had tried to make one of the Elan patterns several years ago, and got discouraged from ever attaining the goal of custom-made couture undies. Sewing tiny, odd shaped, slippery bits of knit fabrics... It was a bit like sewing live sardines. Then when I was finally done, I found out that while technically the bra fit, I had gotten used to a different approach, and the underwires poked me mercilessly in the side. Retrospective analysis and comparison with my current favorites, the Wacoal minimizers, revealed a wider and shallower size of underwire, about 1/2" in each direction. Moreover, the stretch cup thing doesn't seem to make sense, giving a result that looks just like I'm wearing nothing, only with a lot more trouble getting there. The favorites definitely have no cup stretch at all.
So the good news is that I now have 3 more functional bras, but who knows how long that batch will last. I wore the attempt at homemade again and got poked just as much. I looked at the pattern again and pondered changing everything to fit the new improved underwires. Patterns also seem to suffer from the same faults as ready-to-wear, the big jump between nice-looking but tiny, and supportive but looking like my grandma's corsets. I know my patternmaking skills are not that up to par. Sigh. I should just jump in, but I'm just not in the mood for challenges, or at least challenges of that magnitude...
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