hello

[dragonlady7]

I am drinking hot cocoa with a lot of Grand Marnier in it. I have a seam ripper and a partially dismantled bra, which the smudged tag assures me is some flavor of DD, in my lap. One of the underwires came out on its own, and I decided the bra, which is too large in the band and about six sizes too small in the cup, is not salvageable, so I am cannibalizing it for parts. I measured the bits and sketched out the pattern pieces of one of the 2 bras I own that fit me, which is sadly worn (I obtained it in London. Was that 2008? buschibaby, when did you get married? That's the last time I bought myself bras) and somewhat stretched out. Of course, a probably-38-DD underwire is not the same size as a 32J underwire. I measured, it's about three inches shorter. So I'd have to adapt the pattern. It fits around my boob, it just isn't as long. (The curve is nearly the same. That's weird.) I'm not much for patterns; I'm really not that good a seamstress. But I'm a little desperate.
(Torrid is taunting me with a $25 bra sale. Band starts at 40. Cups end at DDD. Fuck you. Cacique's are 50%-off-the-second-bra, as often is the case, but bands start at 38; I can get big enough cups but chopping six inches out of the band does not give a comfortable end result, no matter how I try. Fuck you too!)

We'll see. I don't have any powernet, which is the normal thing to make bras with. I have linen. And maybe I'll make the band from an old t-shirt or something. I really don't know. It will have slightly rusted hooks, and the gold coating has worn off the strap sliders. I may re-use the old elastic from this something-DD bra, which must date to the 90s, I don't remember... The elastic's not bad, it's the underwire casing and the powernet of the band.

This bra *never* fit, and still I wore it until it fell apart. That's fucking ridiculous.

I'm making an attempt at cross-posting this to LJ and Tumblr, so we'll see how that goes.

Comments

[mother2012.livejournal.com]

The old elastic is unlikely to be worth salvaging. If it's typical, it will look just fine until it's stretched three or four times, and then it won't recover anymore.

But maybe that's a higher quality than I'm used to.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Lingerie elastic is the plush-back kind, which I haven't been able to find in stores. I am surprised by how well the elastic from this old bra has held up-- I'm familiar with the phenomenon you mentioned, and I rather expected it in this case, but it seems not to be. However, there's so much stitching in it I probably won't re-use it, unless I simply can't find any other elastic lying around. I don't expect my first attempt at this will be in any way effective, so I'm trying to only recycle expensive notions instead of buying new.

[buschibaby.livejournal.com]

2008 it was. If it's any comfort, I've not had a properly fitting bra in that time either (excepting the Bravado Bodysilk for comfortingly sports bra-like firmness). It seems that needing to have drop cups for breastfeeding means you're not allowed any actual support for your boobs.

Do you need a UK address for bra purposes? I can send things on.