Making A Bra - Part 2: Gathering Supplies

Insert angelic music...

Holy cow, I didn't realize there were so many small notions needed to make a bra. Here is the notions list for the Simplicity 8229:

-3 X 3 hook and eye for bra
-5/8 yard of 1/4" wide elastic
-1 5/8 yard of 3/8 wide strap elastic
-rings and sliders for the straps
-1 1/8 yard of 3/8" channeling
-set of underwires in your cup size
-1 3/4 yards of 3/8" wide plush picot elastic
-stretch and universal needles
-temporary spray adhesive

Whew! That's a ton of notions! So, me being me, I didn't measure elastic widths or anything. I looked in my stash of stuff from Tailor Made Shop and found some picot in a coordinating color and some elastic that I think might be for straps, but it was a coordinating color also, so I made due with what I had on hand. The channeling that was in my grab bag was a dark fuchsia pink which kind of went with the fashion fabric, but unfortunately the underwires that were in one of my grab bags were for a smaller cup size. To keep with my cheapness/broke-ness, we went to the thrift store and I bought 2 bras in a C cup for $.50 a piece and harvested them for their bones. Insert evil laughter here. One of the bras was a strapless, so I took everything off it that I could, including some small plastic boning that I figured could be used down the road. At some point I had bought a set of rings and sliders back in the day so I had those on hand already. Also already on hand was this awful spray adhesive that I got guilted into buying that I decided to give another shot.


Full disclosure, I took this shot before I had really decided on the actual fashion fabric I was going to use, so I ended up not using most of the things pictured for my first bra.




I went ahead and cut out my fashion and lining fabrics just to get the feel of it. This is actually the fabric for my second bra. I forgot to take pictures of the first one before I began to assemble it. Insert fail face.

One of the things I love about this pattern so far is the fact that all of the bra pieces are assembled on the paper according to size. Its hard to tell in the picture, but this is the shot for the 36 strap size. All your pieces are in one spot so you don't have to dig through those giant pieces of pattern paper to find the 4 pieces you need. Super helpful!


So then I was ready to assemble.