We love sewing and designing lingerie. We create top-notch lingerie patterns.
We love sewing and designing lingerie. We create top-notch lingerie patterns.
Although the charm of the Afi Exquisite is the balconette shape, there are cases when you want a cup a bit higher. In this post, I will walk you through the steps how to simply perform this alteration. Let’s get started.
First of all, grab all the cup pieces for the Afi Exquisite bra pattern. They come with included seam allowances. A sample cup is here:
The golden rule of any alteration, if you don’t know it by now, is to remove the seam allowances and have the bare pattern pieces. And only then carry on with any changes you want to make. This is no exception, we start by getting rid of the seam allowances. After that, we’re all set with a paper sheet, a ruler, and a pen.
Steps
- All the seam allowances were removed.
- Join the sling piece (A1) with the A2, start from the notch point, and follow the curve between the two pieces. At some point the pieces split and a dart is formed at the bottom. With a ruler start tracing a straight red line from the notch following the neckline of the A2 piece and prolonging it considerable.
- Along the traced line, bring the A3 and A4 pieces and align them as well. Do NOT overlap any of the pieces. Just bring them close to each other. The A2 and A3 pieces are close along a very short line, while the A3 and A4 join along a longer line.
- With all the pieces aligned it is easy to trace a new neckline. Choose the desired height from the sling. Join the new point with the corner point on the A4 piece.
- Now prolong the vertical lines till the point where they intersect the new neckline.
- Trace your new pieces. Don’t forget to mark your new notch!
- Finally, add back the seam allowances. Pay attention, the red zone is where the upper band elastic will be sewn. And this is where the seam allowances must have the elastic’s width. While the green seam allowances are for joining pieces together.
You should now have a cup with a higher neckline. Are you ready to sew a new Afi Exquisite with a higher cup?
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Excellent clear and concise description.
This is brilliant! Thank so much
Ein sehr aufschlussreiche Erklärung. Normalerweise lernt man solche Sachen nur in einem Workshop. Die sind nicht nur rar gesät aber auch alles andere als günstig. Danke und weiter so. Seit das Frühjahr warten meine Projekte schon, womöglich ist dieses Tutorial einen Anreiz .
This is an excellent tutorial–very easy to understand.
Great explanation, thank you so much for this helpful tutorial !
This is super helpful! Thank you.
Thank you! 🌻
Brilliant, thanks!