Grading the 3 piece cup

I have spent the better part of 2 full days figuring out the grading for my 3 piece bra cup. I graded one band size for 4 cup sizes by hand last week. I spend most of yesterday determining that my measurements were not exact enough. I finished yesterday thinking I had corrected everything.

I had walked the interior seams of the cup and they all matched after many many changes. I realized when I left work that I had neglected the walk the outer seams with the band. Duh! Well, that took another 8 hours today. I am finally satisfied with my grade “rules” that I will begin grading other band sizes this week.

This is what my final graded 36 band looks like. If you can figure it out, go right ahead and be my guest to use my grade rules. I graded everything in Illustrator so I can make pdf patterns to print for classes.

I had started to write grading directions for this cup, but after the last 16 hours spent on this, someone would have to pay me lots of money to do that, or I would have to have a ridiculous amount of free time.

I don’t think either are happening anytime soon so here you go.