Halloween Fun

This year is the first year Emily understands the concept of dressing up. She has been trying all sorts of combinations of costumes. In this photo, she has bumble bee arms, ladybug wings and a cowboy hat.

In this photo she’s a princess and astronaut. I try to tell her she can be everything she wants to be. That was the best advice my parents gave me growing up.

I goofed again

For those of you getting ready to follow my draft, I just realized I goofed on a chart in my new book! Agg! I did this last time too. I swear all this math will get the best of me yet. I posted a bra size chart in one of my videos and it was off by 2 sizes on everything! I triple checked that stupid wire chart about 10 times and changed it that many times as well before the update of the book. I know it was correct, so a little gremlin must be sabotaging me. I’m so sorry if someone bought the wrong wire based on my video. I will make it up to you I promise.

Final set of measurements for the custom draft

I had intentions of getting this video done on Monday, but my shop was a disaster and I had to work on cleaning my desk off. I finally completed clearing my desk off yesterday, so here is the promised video. Please disregard my difficulty in holding my wires for measurements. Please measure in front of a mirror and not in front of a camera.

These directions are what you will need for your custom drafted sloper. I’ll begin recording the drafting tomorrow, but they might not be available until next week.

Another reason I have been slow to post is that I’ve been working on grading a new pattern for my website and in the process, I recorded the steps with the software on how I did it. Those won’t be available until after I complete the drafting directions, so know I have some goodies coming soon.

I make a mistake in the video when I’m talking about the wire size I’m using. See if you can find it.

Preliminary steps for drafting your own bra

I made a couple “raw” videos on measuring. These are just the first steps. There will an additional measuring video once we begin our draft. I will be filming the draft in many steps and will so shorter 5-8 minute videos of each step so its easier to keep up. But for now, this first video is a basic how to measure for your “standard” bra size. I put standard into quotes, because no body actually really fits a standard size.

The standard size measure is to find your starting point. In this video I measured 37 under and 41 over and chose the 38 band to work with. One thing I didn’t mention is that if I were to try on a ready to wear bra, I might also try the 40 band, but step down to the I cup.

Bras are complicated and there is really no one right way to do it. So take a deep breath and forget the numbers and letters you are coming up with and just go with the flow.

This second video is to help you determine which wires to try out when ordering. The larger the cup, the more challenges you might have, so you might need a wider range of wires to test. If you are smaller, meaning you are less than a G cup, you can probably try the suggested wire and then go up and down a size to test too. Bra making in its initial steps is going to be expensive, but once you have the hang of it, you will be creating beautiful bras and at a fraction of the price you’d be buying them in the fancy stores.

UPDATE: Before watching the following video- print this following chart out. I published the wrong size chart in both the video and the first printing of the book. I just updated it, so any new book purchases after 11-1-2016 should have the correct chart.

Remember that most places you order wires from do have a return policy, so extra wires can always be returned, but as a small business I need to express – you will be responsible for shipping costs for returns whether the wires you order fit you or not. And I know this goes for all the other bra wire suppliers out there too. Wires do not come in a one size fits all package. There can be hundreds to choose from, including demi, short, long, etc. The draft we will be working on is a full coverage “block.”

This means that this draft can be manipulated into other shapes and sizes, so your initial draft might not be the best shape for you. We will get to that after our draft. See you soon for our draft.

Giveaway for a Website Review

We relaunched our website about 2 weeks ago and I think I finally have worked out all the bugs. Now I need your help! Take a minute and check out our website Porcelynne.com. The fill out the following questionnaire for a chance to win 1 of 5 downloads of my second edition of Bare Essentials: Bras. Thanks in advance!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Introductory sewing lessons for free

Since the entire premise for starting my school was to make sewing lessons available for all, I have started to do some intro videos for my YouTube Channel. I’m still 58 subscribers away from being able to give my channel a proper name, but I know I’ll get there. I have created two introductory lessons.

This video explains how to thread and operate a sewing machine.

And this video explains how to sew a french seam.

I’ll be continuing to add additional videos to my channel, from beginner levels to advanced and even some creative projects. I have 6 videos planned for the following week, but I’ll be happy if I complete 3 of them. They are actually quite fun to do.

Drafting a Bra Sling Tutorial

I created this lower cup sling idea about a month ago when I was having issues with my cups pulling out of shape on my bras. I mostly use woven fabrics with no stretch, but when you have a lot of weight hitting the bias of the fabrics, it made funny creases on my bra that were visible on the outside of my clothes.

I drafted this cup by thinking of the engineering of a bra and also the engineering of life. I though that if I could distribute the weight across the inside of the cup with a sling (like a hammock) it might take some weight off the cup itself. Anyway, I’m a J cup and this actually did the trick for me. I can’t say everyone will have the same results as me, but I had a lot of requests for me to post directions on how to do it.

Since I’m trying this whole video thing, I decided to film it instead of me trying to photograph the steps then write it all down. Video is so much easier. Here is your video.

Sewing a Simple Lace Boyshort Tutorial

Here is my first sewing tutorial for YouTube. I know I sound nervous at the beginning, but I’ll get the hang of it soon. I am offering the first 50 downloads of the pattern for free using the code embedding in the video, although think they are mostly gone at this point. Even if you didn’t get it free, it only costs 99 cents, so you really can’t go wrong.

Shopping List:
2 yards of a wide lace 5-8″ wide
Scrap square of jersey fabric – cotton or whatever you have around. I’ve used old t-shirts in a quick minute for my jersey lining.
Pattern from Porcelynne.com

I had to break the video into 3 parts, because the maximum length is 15 minutes right now. You will also notice that I mess up, my machines messes up and I make mistakes. I like to be real and you get it all with me. I did clip some of the screw ups out, but this is a typical sewing day for me. Enjoy.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

New Years Resolution in October

I’m starting earlier than I’ve ever started before for my New Years Resolutions. The first resolution is to post more. The second resolution is to do video tutorials. The third resolution is to focus on what I love to do.

I recently relaunched my website with lots of new features and migrated back from a wordpress blog to blogger. I can’t stand wordpress. It is such a pain in the butt to do anything with it. It is also not secure, so here I am, back to the blog I started years ago. Luckily it was easy to transfer all my posts over from the other platform.

Anyway, back to the website. We added some really awesome features and are still trouble shooting little hiccups with the site. We added a rewards point program so you can earn 10% back on future purchases, a nifty affiliate program so you can make money off me, a wishlist, dynamic images and cleaned up the categories a bit.

On another front, I rewrote the bra book and relaunched it in July. Yeah, not sure why I didn’t post about it, but here I am. The link to the new book is on the blog sidebar, but if you are reading through an RSS reader, search for “Bare Essentials: Bras Second Edition.”

Besides that release and the web release, I have also released my own YouTube Channel. Yeah, like I didn’t have enough to do. I decided it would be easier to film tutorials than blog about them, so here is my channel. 

I can get a custom channel once I have at least 100 subscribers. I launched it on Monday this week and already have 37 subscribers, so I’ll post when I have a new one.

I’ll keep this short and post my intro video. Enjoy and I hope you subscribe.