I know I’m supposed to be working on my wearable wardrobe, but sometimes a girl’s just gotta make a bra! You might know that I’ve made several Watson Bras, but I’ve recently decided to try my hand at a bra I might actually wear out of the house (read: containing underwire). I looked a bunch of patterns and settled on the Orange Lingerie Boylston Bra.

I picked the Boylston Bra pattern for a few reasons. First, I like that you can make it work with foam. Second, it comes in a fairly large range of sizes. Third, Norma, the designer at Orange Lingerie, makes custom bras so I figured she was a good bet as far as designers go. I think I was right.

For some reason, I decided to make a foam cup for my first iteration of this pattern (the black one here), which was silly in retrospect. I found that the cup was a bit small for me, which wasn’t the most surprising. I had made a 30DD, but my RTW bra size is 28E/F. To verify what I should do next, I emailed Norma and she was very helpful.

For this Boylston Bra, I cut a 32DD and graded into a 30DD for the back band. Basically the whole front is a 32 and the back is a 30. Then I had to modify the frame piece to match the 30 back band piece. I followed a hint on the Orange Lingerie Instagram to make the frame and bridge one piece. In retrospect, this step was perhaps unnecessary. I used a kit from Tailor Made Shop, which included all the lace, lining, power mesh, elastics, and findings I needed to make this. The kit came with a 2×3 hook and eye set, so I modified the back band piece accordingly.

I followed a tutorial from Anna Zoe on doing a scalloped lace upper cup and “regular” straps for the Boylston bra. I like a lot of the bras I’ve seen with the fabric straps, but I prefer the simple regular straps. I wanted the guts of this to be pretty, so I sandwiched the upper cup between the lower cup and the lower cup lining pieces when sewing them all together. This enclosed the seams between the layers so I don’t have them rubbing on my boobs.

For my next Boylston bra, I might just cut a straight 32DD. The band is really tight, which is likely due to the firm power mesh I used. And because I joined the frame and bridge, the stretch on the front is a little different. Also (maybe more likely) due to the fact that I didn’t read the part where the directions say to add 4″ to your band measurement to pick your bra size. Whoops. Maybe it will get better with wear?

I’m definitely not done with the Boylston bra pattern yet! I have more bra kits waiting and I’m certain that I’ll get this pattern tweaked so that it’s perfect for me.