Test bra!

I had a bra from Victoria's Secret that I bought in 2004, from the Glamour Collection, I.E. makes you look normal collection. It was a Demi cup with a single vertical seam, lace with a thin tricot mesh lining. Unfortunately it was falling apart and I really liked the fit of it so I took it apart stitch by stitch and turned a size 32D into a 30DD. I made two bras from it, 1 successfully. The first one I didn't ease the cup into the band so I lost some of the cup material thinking I had cut it too big, so it came out like a push-up without the padding (less of a curve in the bottom of the cup is what gives this effect. The second one I made came out perfect, but it was quite crude looking. It was blue with a dark blue lace. That part looked fine. I didn't have any darker colored notions on hand so the wire casing, hook and eye closure and half of the straps were either black or white. And then I grew out of the cups.

I thought I threw the pattern away, but I found it the day before yesterday when I was going through my patterns. I adjusted the cup to make it a size bigger and accomodate this size change in the band as well. Since I wasn't using a stretchy fabric the band stayed pretty much the same (I did cut it on the bias for some ease). And it wasn't exactly a size 30 before. The fit is more of a size 26 and it fits a lot better, but almost a little too tight. Its a lot more supportive, compared to my 28's.

The cup is 2 layers of fabric and some quilt batting! It's thin enough (1/8" at most) that it conceals...kind of...but it doesn't add to size. Plus it's a lot more flexible than foam, especially since it's been sewn into the cup. I don't know why batting isn't used more often in bras. I remember when I was younger I had a bra with this in it and it was my most comfortable one.

Sorry, no action shots. There are still a few little fit issues that I need to fix so this doesn't look absolutely perfect on me, but it's close enough! Also, the inside is not finished to my liking. I didn't have long enough wire casings so I actually made some out of felt, but they probably wouldn't hold up as long since they're not backed with fabric. I can already feel the wires trying to poke through on the tops. And I was going to put some plastic boning on the side wings, where that seam is under the arm going towards the back (this would have covered up that raw seam allowance too). But I'll just save that for future ones.

Finished size: 26G (UK)with a 9.25" cup depth.