To put a smile on everyone’s face, I have finally filmed my first set of drafting videos for creating your own bra sloper. I’ll keep this short, as I know everyone wants to begin drafting yesterday, so here it goes. Happy watching!

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.

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.

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.

In this sample we are moving the strap placement.

Step 1: Draw in your seam allowance at 1/4″

Step 2: Take your two patterns pieces and overlap the seam line and tape down.

Step 3: Use the french ruler and reshape the strap position

Step 4: Cut off change and tape down to the new position.

Step 5: Separate the two pattern pieces.