A walk down Mallori Lane

Do not adjust your sets! Yes, this isn’t a dress, it’s a late entry for September’s Nighty Night challenge. I’m a newbie at sewing lingerie and with all the new terminology, supplies and technicalities to master, I decided to give myself an easy ride by choosing an easy bralette to sew first.

I have been following Madalynne‘s excellent lingerie and sewing blog for a while and there are some free patterns on there. The Mallori Lane bralette is described as a “simple bralette finished with skinny strap detailing along the back. Designed for smaller-chested women with little projection (cup sizes A-B)”.

I already had some stretch lace in my stash, but I bought all the other items required for the project from Sewn Bristol. These included the picot elastic, elastic straps, powernet, and channelling in “Black Cherry” and gold-coloured rings and sliders . Sewn have a good selection of lingerie supplies in various colours. I know that finding lingerie supplies in the uk is quite difficult, so I am very grateful for a shop on my doorstep with such great stock.

The construction was relatively straight forward for the Mallori Lane and if you have experience of general sewing and in particular sewing stretch fabrics then I’d recommend this pattern as a good easy start for sewing lingerie. The only snag with the instructions is that the channelling isn’t mentioned on the supplies list (in the PDF), although it is mentioned in the instructions, so I had to make a dash back to Sewn for the channelling when I was half-way through my make. I would also recommend looking at how straps are threaded on an existing bra to see how this works. I couldn’t quite work it out from the instructions and it was easy to work it out with an example in front of me.

I’ve worn the bralette for a couple of days now and I find it is comfortable and supportive (at least for me). The pattern is specifically designed for the smaller-endowed (A and B cups). Actually, it’s better than that, I feel it almost isn’t there – perhaps because I am used to the underwire styles, which do put pressure on the body in weird places, like just under the armpit.

One more thing, just a warning…..I did need to be physically extracted from my new bralette when I changed for bed the first time I wore it. Mr Steely had to literally pull it off me as I was doing an impression of a 5-year old fighting their way out of a jumper (or maybe that was just Master Steely at that age). Anyway, I think I have got the hang of removing this piece of underwear a little more gracefully, but I would still pass on wearing it to the swimming pool, just in case I couldn’t get it off!

There’s more information and detail on my blog. I’ve also included an evaluation of my current bra collection, so I can see that making bras is going to be on my agenda in the next year, since I’ve had to throw out a few very old ones.