Sewing a wired bra with lace fabric

Often when we think of the materials required to make a wired bra we think of a lace edging. A wide lace trim that has a finished scallop edge, which forms the upper edge of the cup. Whilst these are beautiful, once you open yourself up to the idea of using a fabric as the cups the possibilities are endless!

I've made some lovely bras with soft tana lawn, silk, lace and satin. The thing you will need to keep in mind here is how you're going to finish the upper edge of the cup. There are a few options...

Option 1 is to stitch your sheer cup lining to your outer fabric right sides together and turn the seam to the inside (this is what I've done here)

Option 2 is to bind the top of the cup with fold over elastic. This works really well and offers a little support to the cup and encourages it to sit snug against your body.

Option 3 is to use a narrow trim or picot elastic to finish the edge.

I had a beautiful peach tea wired bra kit to work with on this project, you'll find it here The lace is an all over lace with a scallop edge. The scallop is a little big for this project so I'm not going to cut my pieces using the scallop, but rather run with the grain of the fabric.

Depending on your fabrics design you can place your pieces in the best spot to optimise the design. This lace is a repetitive design so placement wasn't crucial.

Once you've cut all your pieces it's time to get sewing!

I made the Evie bra from the lingerie society. You can find the pattern here

There is also a sew along that I filmed for this bra over on youtube that will walk you through all the steps of construction

The fine fabrics and stretch trims handle beautifully on my Pfaff creative 3.0

You can see here how after sewing the centre cup seam on both the outer and lining fabrics, I have placed the two right sides together, matching the seams and stitched along the top of the cup. I find i don't need any extra stabilising on the seam but you might like to stitch some clear elastic to the inside if you feel you need it. Then go ahead and flip your lining to the inside, encasing all your seams.

It really does all come together fairly quickly, once you've got the fit down.

I utilised the delicate eyelash scallop on the lace as a decorative feature on the matching knickers.

I hope this encourages you to try using fabrics rather than trims in bra making. Remember, just about any fabric can be made into a bra!

Until next time, happy sewing

Julia x