Almost every piece of factory-made clothing I own fits me badly. I hate shopping for clothing. As I have been doing more sewing, I am realizing why that it is. Factory-made clothing is designed for some ideal or make-believe person that is definitely not me. I own a few tailor-made Indian outfits since India is one place people still do that and they, of course, fit me quite well.
I have been thinking about how I can gradually make a wardrobe that actually fits, is flattering and is comfortable. And that includes undergarments. Now, I am not too dissatisfied with the underwear I have purchased at Target (bras are another matter and I am going to write at least one post about that), but I have found that underwear that I make myself is more comfortable and than what I was purchasing at the store.
Making underwear is also a good way to use up smaller pieces of fabric and all the underwear above was upcycled or scraps from previous projects. Last winter I answered an ad on Facebook for someone giving away a few bags of fabric and sewing notions. I think this individual had just cleaned out an older parent's basement.
The bags contained a huge jumble of stuff including some things that had been cut. I was never going to use the material for what the individual who had cut it had intended and I don't think I had all the pieces anyway. From the front and back of what been originally been destined to be a shirt, I was able to make two pairs of underwear from it.
I used the Wonder Undies digital pattern from Waves and Wild (formerly Made by Jacks's Mum). The pattern comes in a pdf file with multiple sizes. You print the pattern on standard paper and then tape it together to make the pieces (and of course I printed the pattern on the back of paper that had already been printed on!). This pattern comes with an instruction booklet containing pictures and helpful instructions.
You can make the pattern using elastic waist/leg bands or simply by using jersey knit. There are five pattern pieces, two of which you cut out two pieces. The first pair I made took me a couple hours. I simply used a zig-zag stitch with my regular and not very expensive sewing machine. I made the blue and black striped underwear more recently and I purchased a used serger several months ago and had it recently tuned up. I serged the two pairs and the edges were so much cleaner. There were a few places where I did not catch all the fabric layers and did some corrective work with my sewing machine.
Now that I have repeated this pattern a few times, I can now make these in around an hour if I don't make any mistakes!
I haven't modified the pattern much, though I will probably take in the band of the striped underwear a little bit. I could tweak it to fit my body, but I like this underwear more than what I buy at the store so I go with what is there. The jersey knit waist band is super comfortable and I have found it stays up better than I would have thought.
All the underwear I have made so far has been from existing garments. For a few pairs of underwear I made, I had to piece together the waist and leg bands from two pieces of fabric because what I had was not long enough. It made very little difference to the final project.
I think you should try to make underwear and other undergarments. Stay tuned for more on this subject.
