New to me panties

For scientific purposes, I have taken photos of these panties I’ve made. And now they are on the inter webs for all the world to see. But these underwear are quite flattering so I’m not too ashamed of the way they look on me.

I love wearing high-waisted underwear under dresses. There’s just something about them. They’re sexy while at the same time offering quite a bit of coverage.  The first piece of lingerie I’ve ever made was the Betty high-waisted underwear from ohhhh lulu. Those were even more high-waisted than these ones are. I wasn’t completely happy with the fit, so I kind of gave up on the pattern after making a couple of pairs.

I just found this pattern by chance. I was cruising around on my instagram and I think it popped up in my featured feed. So I followed the tags until I found the company it was from: Evie la Luve. It’s run by Hannah Victoria, who’s from England.  You have got to go look at her website. Her lingerie samples are absolutely drool worthy! She’s got patterns for bralettes, panties, swimwear, plus kits, supplies and more! The Maxine Panties is a free taster. And I think I am hooked.

I printed out both the pattern and instructions. I normally just print the pattern and follow the instructions on my iPad, but these were just too pretty! The steps are very clear, and she explains how to attach both fold over elastic and lingerie elastic. However, I don’t know if it’s because I need more practise, or if it’s my machine, but the waistband elastic kind of got stretched out of shape on both versions, and I’m not sure what I did wrong. Any seasoned lingerie makers around here?

At first, I cut out the straight size L, even though my waist measurement fell into size S. It’s just that, when I held it up to me it seemed like the L would be a good idea. This was a mistake, as the waist clearly is too big on my rainbow version (look at the front of the panties in the photo below). Normally, when I buy underwear, I don’t have this problem because they’re all bikini cut and waist size doesn’t matter. Luckily, I still have quite a bit of this rainbow fabric. Maybe next time I’ll even match the stripes!

For my second version, I graded from a size M to a size L. And I think it’s almost perfect now. I may need to shave off a cm from the top back, as I kind of have a little excess fabric back there. Oh, also, I just skimmed through the instructions and then got to sewing, so I messed up a little bit on the seam allowance on the first one. The seam allowance on the crotch seams is 1cm, but the side seams are narrower for some reason. I think it may be because it was designed for a 3-thread overlock stitch. And lucky for me, I just learned how to thread my machine for a 3 thread stitch (despite what my manual and the internet may think, this is NOT intuitive! It took me quite a bit of searching to figure out that you use both looper threads and either the right or left needle, depending on if you want a narrow or wider stitch).

So if you’ve thought of making your own high-waisted panties – go try out this pattern! And if you like the rainbow fabric, there’s a few meters left over at Herberttextil.de

Details:

Pattern: The Maxine Panties

Rainbows & Unicorns Fabric: Cotton Jersey with 4% spandex (Kids Jersey)

Polkadot Fabric:  Cotton Jersey with 5% spandex (Stenzo)

Notions: thread, lingerie elastic (just under 2m)

Alterations: Graded from M at waist to L at hip

I love seeing what everyone’s making so far this month! You all inspire me so much. And you are all so kind, it made me feel comfortable enough to post these photos. Good luck this week!