The Great Knicker-Making Mission, Part the First

I want to make my own knickers. It's like, an obsession. I can't tell you when exactly the urge to make knickers began, but I began sewing mid-July-ish. This is a little journal of what I've done so far. I'm strangely enjoying myself in this project, despite the amount of frustrations I've had so far, and I have big plans for redrafting patterns and trying other patterns and even *gasp* shopping for patterns. I am determined to make my own knickers. DAMN IT.

Tee Shirt Knickers - Mark I

My first attempt was making knickers out of tee-shirt fabric. Mixed results with this one, mostly a result of my iffy elastic sewing skills, and my lack of experience in drafting. I can make casings and thread knicker elastic through without any problems, but sewing on pretty lacy knicker elastic has been a dreadful mess. Thus:

I felt a little disappointed after these initial attempts and put everything aside for a few weeks. A lot later, I dug out a bunch of half finished tee-shirt knickers and took the advice on The Zen of Making; sewing elastic around the top opening only and leaving the legs holes merely overlocked. Better, but again my poor elastic sewing skills let me down. This particular attempt made some undies that are a wee bit big around the top. I shall unpick the elastic and sew some more on. Perhaps, in future, I will measure myself first? It's crazy, but it just might work.

I'm not yet done with this concept. I think the pattern needs more work, but.

French Knickers - Mark I

Weeks after the tiny crabbed knickers disaster, I spent an entire weekend working on The Perfect Pair of French Knickers. My drafting abilities seem to have improved since the original Tee Shirt Knicker attempt, so that's a blessing. Unfortunately, the patterns I've been working from are vintage patterns cadged from an infrequently kept website called Frilly Bits and I was kind of working in the dark when I was making my first pair. Pour example: the first pair I drafted had allowance for a placket, yet I had no idea what a placket was until I looked it up on Wikipedia. I kind of just bunged something in to make the placket worthwhile. The something I bunged in isn't awesome.

After making my first pair of French knickers I decided they while the pattern was pretty cool, the knickers weren't particularly practical (given the height of jeans etc). I tried drafting another pattern for a lower slung pair and almost cut myself in half!  So, back to the drawing board on this one. I think I'll try the other pattern referred to on the site and see how that works out.

Knitted Knickers - Mark the Only. I SWEAR.

The same weekend I started sewing I also began knitting some lacy French knickers but after knitting laboriously for three or four days I discovered that my lace knitting skillz haven't yet reached the heights needed to make these bad boys. So. NO TO KNITTED KNICKERS, unless, I suppose, my butt is really cold next year and I find a really good pattern that doesn't involve me losing my mind over complicated lace panels.

I'm having some serious fun with this, and I'm determined to get this right. The sewing machine/construction of garments will NOT get the better of me. I have not yet begun to show what I am capable of making.

There will be more, completed and epically awesome.

Or. There Will Be Blood.

Here is a list of underwear making references for yooooooooooou.

The Zen of Making (tee shirt undies)

Rachel, on Instructables (drafting your own pattern)

Belle and Burger (my original inspiration - tee shirt undies)

Supernaturale (which I've used most often - tee shirt undies)

Marmadaisy (string knickers)

One Hour Craft (smaller string knickers)

French Knickers (guide to a draft - with the mysterious "placket)

Haslam French Knickers (scanned instructions for drafting on Flickr, here and here)

Also, I've just found this list of patterns on Whip Up (some of which I've already listed).