Imagine walking into a cocktail party and seeing this gorgeous lady with a jaw dropping dress; you approach her to ask who designed her dress and just then you see this beautiful bra strap showing but this time around, its not flattering. It makes a flat mockery of the entire dress; the lady behind gently tucks in the part of the bra showing just behind and "miss gorgeous" blushes, embarrassment written all over her. You gently walk past her, disappointed. Well, I've had quite a number of such episodes myself and you can only imagine how much shame I felt in such moments.To a lot of my dresses, I hold a deep sentimental attachment; one of such dresses is a prom dress I bought back in the years when I wanted to be a beauty queen. It's a beautiful orange dress that saved me the stress of putting on a bra and of course, the embarrassment of someone pointing my straying bra strap especially while on stage. Anyway, i just recently made a dress to which I had to add a bra cup; I strongly feel I need to share my little knowledge on bra cups with you on my page considering just what I went through to source for the "how to". Do well not to skip any steps so that you will understand it better.
TOOLS
Scissors, bra cups, dress pattern, choice fabrics, sewing thread with a matching colour, office pins.
Bracups
Thread of matching colour
Scissors
STEP 1
If you are using a pattern, cut the choice fabric using the pattern and join the pieces. Cut the lining for the dress and join exactly thesame way as you did the main fabric.
Backside of the joined pieces of fabric.
STEP2
On the lining, find out the exact position of the underbust and mark with a chalk. You can find out by placing on a mannequin and observing where the bust stops. you can also find out by placing the dress on your chest and make sure you do this wearing a bra. This will enable you to note the exact point your bra stops under your bust; this is your underbust position.
Underbust position lined with a chalk.
STEP3
Note the centre point of the front piece as shown above; mark with a chalk and draw the line down. Place the bracup on the underbust line as shown above. The bra cups should be separated from each other by a distance of not more than 1 inch. That is, each bracup should have a distance of 1/2 (half) inch from the centre line.
STEP4
Secure the position of the bra cup with office pins as shown on the left bra cup as shown on the STEP 2 image above.
STEP 5
Sew as shown below
I usually prefer not to sew round the bracup because that would entail having to cut the other side of the lining open and this gives a very untidy finishing. for this reason, i prefer to leave the uppermost side of the bra cup unsown to the fabric to allow for ease of movement of the bust.
STEP 6
Join the lining to the main fabric and sew together
The other side of the lining after attaching the bracup
Nudging
Well, this is what the front piece looked like when i was done with it.
I DO HOPE THIS TUTORIAL HAS BEEN HELPFUL. I KNOW THE PHOTOS ARE NOT VERY CLEAR BUT I PROMISE TO USE BRIGHTER FABRICS AND HIGHER QUALITY PHOTOS SUBSEQUENTLY. LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS IN THE COMMENT COLUMN BELOW. FOR MORE INQUIRIES AND TUTORIALS, SEND YOUR EMAILS TO maisonerex@gmail.com. Check out our fb page on www.facebook.com/maisonerex or follow us on twitter @maisonerex.
