Shelly’s Secret Revealed Part 2

I had hoped to post this last week, and instead enjoyed a lovely weekend with my father and mother in law. They came to see our new home and we had a great time. We took them to the horse races at Evergreen Park here in Grande Prairie. Bob and I usually pick our favorites by their name as we don’t know a lot about horse racing and we have never bet with money, but did this time. Although we lost 3 out of four bets placed, we ended up breaking even on the last race by putting a bet in on Needlestick. For someone who loves stitching, what better name to bet on.

This week I wanted to let you know how I accomplish the skinny band method prior to placing the cups in the frame and I love to do this with the Gothic Arch. This technique is great because you can really leave your foam cups to the very last. Beverly Johnson has a wonderful blog post explaining how to adjust your pattern for the skinny band her on her Fairy Bra Mother Blog , so I won’t be going over that here.

Because you have to trim your elastic, I found that measuring from the edge of the cup frame down on the elastic about 3/8 of an inch and then cutting slightly above your marked line works well. I also do the 3 step zigzag right along the edge of the band bottom right along the picots for this section. Don't worry about the frayed edges of the elastic as they are sewn over with the channeling and do not stretch due to the amount of seaming over this area. Here are some pictures showing the detail.

The finished band on the right is the one that is on the Shelly's Secret Rose Garden bra. The white one I plan on using for a fitting band for myself. What I like to do is to make a complete band and then make my test cups separately in what Beverly calls the "quick and dirty" method and then baste them in the frame with large stitches and baste the channeling on for fitting. Another alternative I have used is to sew in the cups and channel with wash away thread in the bobbin. There is less stress to the fabric frame due to ripping out the stitches.

This way I only have to adjust the cups and can sew in the modified ones. This saves tons of time and supplies as you only need one band to test a number of cups for you or a client. Especially great for testing your own bra.

Until next time,

Jeanette