handmade wardrobe: rosie bralette hack

i’ve been on a mission this year to perfect my lingerie sewing skills. somehow quarantine has also resulted in basically my entire undies drawer needing replacement now rather than in another year or three (my usual m.o.). i celebrated my 30th birthday back at the beginning of covid by buying myself a matching set of bralette and undies from fortnight, and realized that on most quarantine days, i much prefer bralettes to underwires. that doesn’t reduce my continuing hunt for the perfectly-fitting underwire bra pattern/bra - quarantine is also simultaneously bringing up all my cozy layer dreams and my most unpractical sew frosting dreams (perhaps because i have nowhere to wear those things these days and i’m stuck at home with dogs and i’m just dreaming of when i can go out with good lipstick and stilettos and a tight pencil skirt/dress again?). it turns out that sewing bralettes is trickier than i expected despite there being significantly fewer fiddly bits to fit into place though. the lack of underwire means the cup needs to really fit well, and since i don’t actually need support for my chest, i can be purely aesthetic in my analysis of a bra or bralette. which means that all these full-coverage/high cut patterns are just not cutting it for me and the rest of my wardrobe. enter the rosie bralette from the mad cutters!

i managed to snag this pattern literally a week or two before the designer made her website defunct and shifted gears to hobby making, so unfortunately i don’t know whether it’s still available to access. the pattern itself is super basic, but what i like most about it is that the cup measurement is based off the width of your sternum to the edge of your breast tissue rather than just a basic cup size. i’m a 34c technically, but the second-smallest size for this pattern which makes sense because i normally wear a traditional size small for bralettes from other companies. i’m going to see if i can tweak some of my other patterns to reflect this more (watson bra potential…i love it in general but hate the height of the cup and definitely had too much extra fabric in the cup despite working with my measurements).

i decided to go all in with this one and hacked the back into a Y back with a super thin underband using foe (fold-over elastic). i’m still perfecting my elastic application skills, so i actually added a dart to the side of both cups to deal with gaping under my arm. it made the cups sit nicely against my frame, but i’m going to test pulling the elastic trim more on the next one to see whether i can get the fit sans dart. i’m dreaming up all the strappy versions and matching undies now though - i can’t feel the bralette when it’s on, which is basically my barometer of a good bra ha!

the undies are ohhh lulu’s lola pattern. they’re cute and basic, but my main complaint would be that the sizing basically stops at my hips. currently these patterns go up to a 42-43” hip, so i generally make the largest size or second-largest size, but i will be the first to acknowledge that i do not inhabit a very large body and these sizes are super limited. sophie hines has super cute undies patterns (both hipster and high-waisted) and goes up to a 57” hip - i’ve got my eyes on the median knickers pattern and will likely grade between the medium size at the hip to the large size in the hip.

more lingerie sewing adventures to come - i have a dream in my head of a lounge/boudoir/lingerie-inspired knitting collection at some point. in the meantime, i might just make a bunch of matching undies and bras and face masks, because that’s the new normal and i wanna look cute even if no one else sees it.