I won't lie, it feels kind of weird to be talking about my underwear on the Internet, but I wanted to share these.
The pattern requires a quarter yard of fabric, a truly tiny amount of cotton jersey and some elastic. For this first pair, I picked up some cute black and white gingham and black elastic.
I will say, that just because of the nature of these underwear, they do not photograph well flat. Or at least mine didn't.
Luckily, they're very cute on and I highly recommend this pattern! I can definitely see myself wearing these under a nice flowy sundress or maybe under jeans. I will say, though, that they're more like bloomers than traditional underpants. And they're a little... cheeky. But they don't ride up, so in general, I think I'm a fan.
Don't be scared off by the fact that the largest measurement on the pattern is tiny. The measurement is for what it will be before the elastic is stretched out by your waist. So to find which size would be right for me, I took my normal underwear size, medium, which called for a 25-inch elastic waistband. My waist is not 25 inches, but 25 inches of elastic stretches perfectly to fit me. Easy!
I did French seams on all the seams instead of using the serger or using the suggested method. I will say that the pattern is not super well marked. It took my sickeness-addled brain a while to figure out how to put the PDF pieces together and then, since the center front (CF) and center back (CB) are not marked, I, of course, sewed the wrong thing together the first time. Luckily, I was able to unpick and solve the problem, but that was kind of a pain.
And I think I'm over my fear of PDF patterns, so maybe a Mathilde blouse will be happening sometime soon.
Altogether, these took me two episodes of "Lost" to complete, so not bad. The included cutting out the pattern, sewing the wrong seams and lots of head-scratching.
I do think I will add a little bow to the front (I need to go buy some ribbon before I can do that) because it's difficult to tell the front from the back -- a problem I have with several of my home-sewn garments.
But I will definitely make these again. The pattern suggests eyelet. I do love me some eyelet, so I will probably do an eyelet version next.
You can download the free pattern here. Have fun!
Cute! The pattern certainly looks more like bloomers than undies, but those have their place in the world too (e.g. walking around home during summer if your house is fairly private, or as you say wearing under flowy dresses).
ReplyDeleteI made some boxer briefs and used this method to quickly tell front from back: get some ribbon (eg grosgrain or cotton tape), make a little loop, and sew the two raw ends of the loop into/under the elastic casing. That way the raw edges are hidden inside a seam.
That sounds like a really cute way to show which is the front -- I'll try it if I make another pair! I saw one person who made these did a darling little button on the front, but I could see that getting annoying. Thanks for the comment!
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