1940' Bra Sew-Along - Finishing with a closure.

Hello my dears. I hope you're having a lovely weekend so far.
I just want to start this post out today with a warm hug for my friends and followers in France. Your country was my first love and my oldest friend, and after the events of yesterday, you are in my thoughts and prayers.

It's a chilly day here in Monterey and the sun is at a low angle in the sky. My house smells like a house should on a cold day - hints of apple cider and a pot roast in the oven are wafting up the stairs to my studio. And it's the perfect time to type up a blog post and finish our sew-along.

In our last post we discussed edge finishing and sewing our straps in. Now all that's left to do is add our back closure and we should be done! I know we're all used to hook and eye closures in bras these days and that's what I prefer for this bra. But if you're going for a full 1940's bra style, know that you can also use buttons and loops if you like, or a French bra back, which is essentially two lengths of elastic and a hook.

For this project I have used plush-backed hook and eye tape with a double set of eyes for adjusting fit. This is pretty much plug and play, but there are a few notes on placement.

The first thing to do no matter what type of closure you use, is to stay-stitch the center back of each piece D to keep it from stretching while you work. This can be done with any straight stitch 1/8" from the edge.

Ohh La La Pin Up Sew Along... Your Hook and Eye Closure

The pattern we're using...

All right Ladies, it's that time. Hook and eye time. First, allow me to disclaim a bit. This is not my very best work. I did this on day 4 of NO sleep (hurray for medicine side effects) so my pictures and sewing both are a wee bit blurry, I apologize.

This is a bit of a long post so feel free to stop half way though and have a glass of wine. I did.

The right hand side of the tape will be our 'raw' edge.

 Start by cutting the length of hook and eye tape you need for your back closure. I recommend doing this with the hooks and eyes locked together to avoid any mismatched edges.
Decide which side you want the hooks and eyes on. I went with the standard bra formula of Hooks on the Right, Eyes on the Left.

Let's start with they eyes, shall we?

Lingerie Sew-Along: Tap Panties Finishing Touches Part 11!

I'm ba-ack. Well, to finish my vacation off nicely I had a horrible cold the whole time, and now that we're back and my husband is even more sick than I was, and we've added jet lag and no sleep to the mix? I'm stiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillllll sick. Ugh.

I really hate leaving you all hanging though, and I'm heavily dosed up with cold medicine right now, so LET"S DO THIS!
There are a few different ways you can finish your inside facings. You can serge the edges and tack them by hand onto the seam allowance, pink them and leave them loose, douse them in vodka and set them on fire, but my favorite is to tape them down. Not the scotch tape way, of course, but the fusible kind like this Dritz Stitch Witchery.

You can use it to fuse two layers of fabric together, or to finish raw edges with seam tape.

Here I have laid down a strip of the (shinny) fusible tape. Next I just stick the (very pretty) vintage rayon seam tape over top and a quick press with the iron makes it permanent.