May Bra: modified straps

My bra journey continues. The next lesson in my craftsy class is all about straps. For this bra I made short tapered straps:

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This is a quite easy alteration. The strap extensions (if any) are cut away and the top of the cup is straightened (which mine was already) and for the straps a piece of fabric is folded in half and sewn to the top cup.

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The neckline is finished with picot elastic. I like how the elastic peaks out in front of the strap. If you use an elastic in a different color from your main fabic this will stand out even more.

Here is how it looks on the inside. You see that the strap was sewn to the cup when I made the second row of stitching for the elastic.

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I lined my cups again with a cotton jersey. For this bra I took my time while sewing and it looks much neater than the one before. I also made a row of topstitching on the inner outer side of the underwire as shown in Beverlys first class. This really helped to avoid shifting of the fabric when sewing the second pass of the underwire casing.

I also made the lower cup a bit larger. For this I raised the upper edge about 1.5 cm. In the picture below you see the original cup piece on the left and the new one on the right.

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However, this did not really solve the problem that the bust point is above the cup seam. The lower cup now is somehow rather flat at the bottom. For the next version I will try to make a vertical seam in the lower cup and add a bit along that seam. I also realized if I make one bra for every change that Beverly shows in her class I will end up with a lot of bras. So from now on I will combine two or more changes in one bra. And if I achieve a fit and combination that I really like I will make it up in a pretty fabric. But for now you will have to bear with my boring plain abricot bras. The advantage on the other hand is that I can compare my bras really well as I always use the same fabric and notions. See you next month for the June bra!

5 Replies to “May Bra: modified straps”

  1. I really love the round shape of the cup and this kind of straps. I haven’t really experimented with modified straps and I feel it’s time to try some vertical lines or modified lines in the cup piece like yours!
    When I made a foam cup bra with vertical lines I realized the seam line makes a push-up effect but that’s not what I wanted… it looks like the seam line doesn’t allow my breasts into the lower cup piece. And the underwire sits quite low, not right under my breast. But this particular bra was made for a while now and I don’t remember which pattern (a self drafted but the core was modified a lot of times) I used for it. I’ll experiment more in summer 🙂

    1. For future bras I will experiment with the cup seams. I read the vertically seams are more suitable for a small bust so I will definitively try this out. Good luck with your experiments!

  2. I love this detail, it works so wonderfully with the style lines of this bra. A definite winner in my humble opinion 🙂

    1. Thank you! And it is so easy to just change the straps 🙂

  3. Love your lingerie collection. I’ve watched some of Beverly’s classes on Craftsy and she is wonderful.

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