Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Molding the Bust

I spend quite a lot of time working on fitting my breasts. I'm a D cup and given my bra choice, balconnets, they're very prominent.

A couple of darts in a fitted top just won't do. I have to sculpt and mold the fabric and it's a great exercise in learning about sewing. For example:

The pattern is New Look 6586.


It took two muslins and a huge amount of tweaking to make the one dart for a B cup, to flatteringly fit me. I did a full bust adjustment on the first muslin. After trying it on, I kept on pinning out the extra fabric around the cup, while wearing it. When it finally looked right, I took off the bodice and realised I had pinned a very severe princess seam. I translated that to a second muslin for fine tuning and came up with the black and white dress. It's so wonderful to wear, like a second skin.

I also finally accepted that my fat areas are mainly from front to back, on the sides. So the side princess panel takes the most additions of fabric and the center front princess, very little.

The other time, I've taken the time to do this is for this camisole top:


This took several muslins too. It's from a year ago and I really should have gone further with the lower center portion, to get a clean and tight fit. And, by then I could have added underwires and been in a different territory all together.

I'm getting a glimmer of understanding of the 3D nature of sewing - something that really didn't affect me sewing for a slim C cup'd me. I guess I should look at gaining 50lbs as a cosmic learning opportunity. How bloody Zen!

2 comments:

  1. Which balconnets bra do you like and where do you buy them.

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  2. You're draping on yourself! I do the same and it's very tedious and time consuming, but so worth it in what you learn about your custom pattern pieces.

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